Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 15, 1992 TAG: 9203120091
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL RUTHERFOORD
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Since the 1930s the term regionalism has been applied to art that reflected the cultural dispositions of provincial locales, especially Thomas Hart Benton's Midwestern United States. In recent years this definition has been expanded by such critics as Donald Kuspit to include a psychic and spiritual sense of place not bound by literal geography.
Sieveking appears to share this position. His imagery is not derived solely from Southwest Virginia, but addresses a sweeping Southern pantheon that includes such characters as country music innovator Hank Williams of Alabama; the politician's politician, Huey Long of Louisiana; and Virginia rockabilly pioneer Gene Vincent.
A single title applied to two paintings in Sieveking's show reveals his working attitude: "The Innate Superiority of Southern Culture." Surely he intends ironic humor as well as genuine respect for the contributions of his subjects.
For several years Sieveking has published prints for the Rev. Howard Finster, a world-famous folk artist and preacher from Georgia who considers his art a form of evangelism. The tendency to blend artistic and religious expression is of course ancient and universal. Sieveking's ability to find correspondences between sacred and secular is a preoccupation he and Finster share.
Finster will include Elvis Presley, angelic hosts, demons and scriptural admonitions in one work, while Sieveking will combine Jerry Lee Lewis, enlarged labels for Night Train wine and Moon Pies (a strange Eucharist), a three-dimensional chalk angel, and in an adjacent work a fragment of The Lord's Prayer.
While Sieveking's painting and drawing styles are expressionistic, they also utilize the Warholian device of the enlarged celebrity portrait that can be repeated indefinitely, thereby rendering its subject a commodity in a consuming culture.
The ideas of commodification and religious salvation are simultaneously present in a collaborative painting that Sieveking and North Cross students will add to for the duration of the exhibition. This image bears the inscription "K-Mart the saving place," while in the upper left corner is a Star of David with a cross, testifying to the Judeo-Christian foundation of this country and our penchant for seeking contentment through the acquisition.
This painting also contains a rendering of a tabloid front page with headlines announcing the discovery of stone tablets etched with The Ten Commandments, the imminent arrival of a Killer Rock speeding toward Earth, the birth of an infant cyclops and the terror of the Wisconsin Wolfman - all very apocalyptic.
This vision is pessimistic, but not without its humorous aspect, and in the interest of establishing precedent for the coexistence of pessimism and humor in religious art one need only consult the life's work of 16th-century Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch.
Brian Sieveking's "Work in Progress" is on view through March at North Cross School, Roanoke. 989-6641.
Sherrye J. Lantz's exhibition at Virginia Western Community College is titled "Over the Millennium." These works informed by classical mythology and medieval alchemy combine expressionistic painting, texts and reductive sculptural elements.
The dominant structures in the installation are four totemic figures representing earth, fire, water and air, the basic elements of alchemy. These box-like personages - sentinels in Lantz's painted universe - seem to contain potentiality. They only require the combining and organizing influence of a creator to become any of the world's myriad phenomena.
Two other characters appearing in this installation are powerful women who have been victimized by circumstances.
These large vertical panels depict Cassandra and Persephone of Greek mythology. Cassandra was the human consort of the god Apollo, who gave her the gift of prophecy. However, in a moment of anger he made this gift problematic by causing Cassandra's predictions to be met with extreme skepticism, thus placing the burden of interpretation and belief on those who heard the prophetess. Cassandra was victimized by her gift-bearing lover but continued to use the gift for the benefit of those who would listen.
Persephone, daughter of Greek goddess Ceres, was abducted by Pluto, god of the underworld. Enlisting the aid of Mercury and Spring, Ceres negotiated the release of Persephone. Pluto made sure that his captive bride ate some pomegranate before releasing her to Ceres who was then obliged to return her daughter to Pluto for half the year. Because she had eaten in the underworld, Persephone was forever bound to return to it and is the personification of seasonal change. Persephone was victimized by the circumstances of her forcible marriage but used that condition to usher in renewed life every Spring.
Sherrye Lantz's "Over the Millennium - Symbols Which Endure" is on view Monday through April 3 at Virginia Western Community College's Fine Arts Building, Roanoke. 857-7271.
Mimi Babe Harris has installed eight three-dimensional portraits of artists at the Studios on the Square on downtown Roanoke's Market Square.
The subjects are Betty Branch, Karen Raney, Peyton Klein, Nancy Dahlstrom, Trudy Wheeler, Pat West, Vera Dickerson and Beth Shively (who is the reviewer's wife). There also is a large painted self-portrait of Harris.
The combination of drawing, painting and construction in these portraits explores a working method developed by Marisol Escobar and Larry Rivers during the '60s. Harris brings her own idiosyncratic vision to these representations by casting her subjects as emblems of feminine creativity.
The first image looming overhead as one climbs the gallery stairs shows Karen Raney, an English artist who looks like a woodland priestess ecstatically skipping rope. This sets the tone for the remaining seven portraits of Roanoke artists, who are rendered as shrines and totems conveying an atmosphere of nature-worship and devotion to primordial goddesses while remaining fully contemporary.
Mimi Babe Harris' "Portraits in Mixed Media" is on exhibit through March 28 at The Studios on the Square, downtown Roanoke. 345-4076.
Bill Rutherfoord is an artist, teacher and former curator of the Roanoke Museum of Fine Arts.
by CNB