3/18/2007
Biebuyck just wants to have fun
The artist, whose show “PEARaphernalia” is on
exhibit at the Jewish Community Center of Reading,
pays homage to the work of 20th-century artists, not
to mention a certain sensual fruit. It’s a blast.
By Ron Schira
Reading Eagle Correspondent
Berks County, PA - You’ve got to just love it when somebody takes a good idea and runs with it. That’s the way I feel looking at Susan Biebuyck’s “PEARaphernalia” exhibit, on view at the Jewish Community Center of Reading through March 31. Aside from the fact that the JCC has of late been kicking out one show after another, this exhibit is probably one of the most lyrical and humorous displays I have seen in a long while.
Biebuyck is a skilled realist painter with 15 years of professional graphic design behind her and a degree from Kutztown University. Yet she left all of that in the past tense to follow the fine arts, which she has loved since childhood. So when the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts opened two years ago, she took up shop on the second floor and is now selling her work. She has not once regretted her decision to forego the commercial end of somebody else’s idea.
The idea of this show pertains to the adaptation of a simple shape, namely a pear fruit, and how it corresponds to the various movements of modern art. To add, the paintings in the exhibit often showcase her representational skills but also display her more-than-adequate knowledge and comprehension of art within the last century. The paintings plainly appropriate the styles of a few great artists and very cleverly mimic their appearance to a fault.
“Before,” she said, “I had painted a couple of very tasteful nudes, but some people thought they were lewd and complained about them. So I chose the pear as my subject matter because it is only a fruit and somewhat innocuous. It is responsive and pliant and not stuck in negativity or political commentary.
“It has a pleasant, round, even sensual shape and can mold itself to anything I ask of it, including my adaptation and homage to my heroes of contemporary art. In this way I am responding to art of the 20th century.”
Obvious impersonations of style by Jasper Johns, Joan Miro, Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollack, Henri Matisse, Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and others hang on the walls in a makeshift procession of cultural personae. She adroitly copies the mannerisms and techniques of Surrealism, Art-Deco, Abstract Expression, Pop, etc., with perfect aplomb.
I had to chuckle at a few of these. I especially fancied the Magritte look-alike with the woman as artist and a pear instead of the famous apple obscuring her head. The Haring, Miro and Mondrian pieces were quite enjoyable as well.
“For the painting I did on Klimt,” she said, “I taught myself how to use gold leaf.”
Appropriation, as such, was popular in the 1980s during the New York East Village craze with artists David Wojnarowicz, who stole images from the media and Mike Bidlo, especially, who directly copied artworks by Picasso and Duchamp in a way that skirted the fringes of plagiarism.
Serious artists, they felt that picking and revising from the culture re-contextualized the content of their work and added new meaning to the term originality within an oversaturated, information-based society. To simplify, they recycled a familiar image outside of its field of recognition to mean something new.
Biebuyck’s images are not per se copies since she has not taken from a particular artwork and her paintings only mimic the stylistic appearance. They contain very little subtext. They are a tip-of-the-hat to her artistic inspirations and predecessors more so than any kind of political repartee or art-world rhetoric while merely using the pear fruit as a compositional device. These humorous, almost campy artworks have a great deal to do with the pure enjoyment of art before the theories and queries messed it up.
But of course, that is exactly what she wanted: to bypass all that stuff and just have fun.
Exhibit showcases talent of GoggleWorks artists
The annual exhibition is on view through Jan. 8 in the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts’ Cohen Gallery.
By Ron Schira Reading Eagle Correspondent
Call 610-374-4600, ext. 113, or visit www.goggleworks.com for hours and general information. Parking is free and accessible on Second Street.
Call 610-374-4600, ext. 113, or visit www.goggleworks.com for hours and general information. Parking is free and accessible on Second Street.
The GoggleWorks Center for the Arts, 201 Washington St., now in its second year of operation, has managed to stay afloat reasonably well amid traffic and construction.
Attendance at the Goggle-Works is holding steady, and Second Sunday events are normally crowded.
As would be expected, the Goggle-Works artists are holding a group exhibition of their work, somewhat in the same vein as the Berks Art Alliance’s Annual Membership Show.
One might also expect that the work exhibited in the show — the GoggleWorks Annual Artist Exhibition, on view through Jan. 8 — in the Cohen Gallery would be of high quality, assuming that the tenants are professional enough to apply for, afford and maintain a studio.
Yet, I found the quality of the works displayed to be a bit uneven. If you visit the show, you will see for yourself.
The exhibit includes paintings and blown glass such as Helen Tegeler’s elegant “Seep.”
Marianna Burkard’s series of handmade aprons adds a nice touch to the well-lit show. The same applies to Karen Lesniak’s abstract folding screen and Roy Hershey’s ceramic plates, as well as Barbara Thun’s sculptural “Seedpod” and Susie Martin’s ceramic vases. All of these pieces are excellently done.
I found “Jas-pear Johns: Flag,” a painting by Susan Biebuyck, to be quite humorous. In response to a comment made by a visitor that a painting she made of a pear was indecent, Biebuyck has painted or constructed a series of pears in the styles of Mondrian, Matisse, Van Gogh and others.
This piece comprises the famous Jasper Johns flag image and a superimposed pear shape, with other pieces on view in a separate upstairs gallery.
Matthew Mazurkiewicz’s oil painting “One Hundred Block” is interesting for its spontaneous gesture and 1980’s look of inner-city angst, while Mike Miller’s political collage “Armed” portrays a tongue-in-cheek, silhouetted puppeteer dangling 20 of his minions on a string from each finger.
My favorite piece is Elizabeth Irwin’s “Pregnant Madonna,” which displays exactly that: a pregnant mother-to-be in the style of a Russian icon, with halo, robe, gold leaf and all. It is small, precious and beautiful.
I would additionally like to mention some worthwhile artworks by Deb Schlouch, Georgette Veeder, Peter Stolvoort, Mary Stoudt, Shirley Newton, Sandi Defranco Giannini, Sharon McGinley, Raylene Devine, Alan Cernak and Richard Summons.
I would have liked to include Robert Dale Williams, but for all of his ambitious scale, his understanding of form and his excellent mannerist technique, he repeatedly neglects to give his subjects a sense of place by working in a comparable background. His paintings unfortunately end up looking like mere exercises on the human figure.
But by all means, see this show. I hope I am speaking for all of us when I say that I don’t want to only see the Goggle-Works stay afloat, I want it to take off and fly.