
DATE: Sunday, August 10, 1997               TAG: 9708110238

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E9   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   91 lines

ARTISTS LAY THEMSELVES BARE IN EXHIBIT OF SELF-PORTRAITS

A GOOD MODEL is hard to find.

Figurative artists in search of still bodies have limited options. They can find patrons who will pay to have their portraits painted, but - imagine this - such folks tend to want to control their image. They're usually not too intrigued with artistic interpretations of their features. Nor are they content with realism, usually to the exact extent that they are unhappy with the topography of their faces.

Painters can hire a model, of course, but that costs an arm and a leg.

Or they can look in the mirror.

About 50 regional artists confronted their own visage this summer - with varying degrees of verisimilitude - for an exhibit of self-portraits at the d'Art Center in downtown Norfolk. Half of the artists rent studios at d'Art.

If you're familiar with the area art scene, you'll get a charge out of seeing how some of our better-known local artists rendered themselves. Afterward, you'll know them a little bit better.

You may, in fact, learn more than you wanted to know - from allusions to childhood sexual abuse, to encroaching impotence - though such confessions are seen in only a few works.

There's every imaginable approach, from Vonnie Whitworth's realistic watercolor still life of objects alluding to her lives as mother, woman and artist to Lynne Sward's delicate folding screen that presents tongue-in-cheek past-life tales.

What's also fun about this show is that known art professionals who rarely exhibit dared to participate.

Jim Armbruster, exhibit designer at The Chrysler Museum of Art, has contributed an unusual and subtle piece. He has made clean, lyrical slices through a sheet of paper, lifting up basic shapes. The result is ``L'Amour Fou,'' a romantic suggestion of a beret-wearing man in Paris, the French flag flying from the distant Eiffel Tower.

Another exhibit designer, Rick Hadley of Colonial Williamsburg, has been a closet painter for years. His wry humor comes through in ``Study for Entr'Acte,'' which shows the artist pointing up at himself in harlequin pants walking on a tightrope.

Also, Ann Dearsley-Vernon, the Chrysler's director of education, picked up paintbrushes for the first time in years. She emerged with a charming lyrical portrait in pastels of a serene earth mother in her garden - gardening being a favorite avocation. Everything's painted with wiggly lines, which is how poet Allen Ginsberg once described nature.

Another artist, Peggy Earle, made her painted self-portrait a second-generation image. She photographed it and set it inside a small, open box along with other knickknacks, a la Joseph Cornell. The painting depicts her as a Russian peasant, alluding to her heritage.

A few artists displayed clothing as a stand-in for self. Examples are a wearable-art dream cape by Pamela Pine Winslow, jewelry by Deborah Small and Beverly Furman's strapless high school prom gown displayed with old photos.

The show's finest painters appeared sufficiently skilled to really control the self-image they sent out into the world.

Norman Goodwin's amusing self-portrait makes him look like a handsome, well-dressed and witty member of the 1930s leisure class. All of which, with the exception of his era and purse, are true.

By contrast, figurative painter Ray Hershberger, organizer for this exhibit, gave himself a heroic stance - his solid, unflinching form dramatically molded by chiaroscuro light.

Some portrayed themselves working at their art. William Barnes' monotype depicting himself at the drawing table looks remarkably like the man.

There's even a couple portrait - created by two artists working on the same canvas, always a risky business. Hal Weaver and Janet Shaughnessy each painted their own torsos; they chose the same posture - hands before them, as if pressed against a glass wall - but the feeling is different for each figure. She looks liberated while he looks wary.

The Weaver-Shaughnessy piece is called ``Glass Bottom Boat.'' So they're looking into deep waters - a metaphor for the unconscious, where the best art lives.

So, why did so many artists heed the call?

As Andy Warhol said in 1986, ``I paint pictures of myself to. . . I guess. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

COURTESY OF VONNIE WHITWORTH

Vonnie Whitworth works on her watercolor still life of objects

alluding to her lives as mother, woman and artist.

Graphic

WANT TO GO?

What: ``Self Portraits/the other Face,'' a group exhibit

Where: d'Art Center, 125 College Place, Norfolk

When: Through Aug. 24

Hours: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m.

Sunday