ERNEST LOCKRIDGE: WINTER DREAMS
WINTER DREAMS: PAINTINGS BY ERNEST LOCKRIDGE
"Still life is a contradiction in terms." -- Ernest Lockridge
Winter Dreams, a one man show by the contemporary American artist Ernest Lockridge, closed at The Worthington Art Center on January 14, 2008.-- My holiday rush had evolved into a smush, but I'm glad I got to the Art Center before Winter Dreams closed! The artist is working in acrylics,and his twelve painting exhibit was substantial.-- In other words, well painted, exciting.
An "unretired" Professor of English from The Ohio State University, Lockridge once taught at Yale and has three published novels under his belt. He is able to paint full time now, hence his descriptive "unretired," and he loves to travel. A few years back he and his wife, Laurel Richardson, poet/sociologist, co-authored Travels With Ernest, a lively mixed genre account of their travels. Lockridge's artistic efforts, many of them originating plein air, have taken him from Taos, New Mexico, to the Yucatan Peninsula, to Hawaii, and to other exciting places, including Schiller and WhetstoneParks in Columbus! Winter Dreams is visual evidence of the Richardson/Lockridge penchant for globe trotting.
As to painting, Lockridge's is grounded in his technical aplomb and in his familiarity with work of "greats"-- ranging from Sargent to Grandma Moses to Native American pictographs to the cave paintings at Chauvet." -- On his artist's statement he says that he began to use his first set of Sargents(!) paints when he was eight years old. Now he uses thickly applied paint and obvious brush strokes, like the Impressionists did. He is not afraid of color. His use of it although broad, is harmonious, meticulous. The tall BURNING BUSH, TASMANIA, seems about to explode with raw color and linear shapes.
THE FIRE THIS TIME, TAOS, 24 x 36 inches, a gorgeous canvas (board) was, of course, painted in Georgia O Keefe country in New Mexico, and in it masterful gradations of reds, oranges, browns, form a blizzard of tree foliage that nearly covers the side of a non-descript ranch house. The colors on both of these paintings are on fire, smouldering. Having lived in Ohio for years when he taught at The Ohio State University, Lockridge has internalized the audacious hues of Ohio autumns and has transported them to other venues, tamed them to his palette. -- And, speak of "taming," -- in LOST IN ICELAND, 20 x 24 inches, the strangely elided and juxtaposed shapes of two big horses stand flank by flank, nearly fill the "canvas," and create a study in design and color that is baffling. -- As I recall, a splat of midnight sun, or perhaps a day time moon -- is visible here. And iconic white aurioles, sun-like splats, glimmer in other of Lockridge's paintings. -- But you have to look.
The aesthetics of design and abstraction are present in Lost in Iceland. Yet, the large truncated shapes of the two horses suggest something primitive and one cannot help but think of pre-Norse myths and legends.
Again. Lockridge has mastered the elements of composition and color. Yet, his canvasses (or boards) manage to shimmy, to emit an electric charge. -- It's brush strokes in motion! This is true of TIDAL POOL, YUCATAN, 24 x 36 inches, in which a very small man in red trunks swims his way thru huge sheafs of white water toward the opening crevice that might suggest the birth canal. Lockridge's paintings are all somewhat abstract, yet the majority of them include elements of the representational. The swimmer in red trunks is a swimmer in red trunks! Lockridge's chosen modus, wisely, tends toward the maxim that "less is more."
FOUNDATION, a foray into grids and pure abstraction, is striking yet understated. The hues of SEDONA SUNSET emit lavender-sagebrush-deep purple-fragrances -- if you can see fragrances!
For Winter Dreams Lockridge's most "outre" effort is NO PARKING ZONE, CARMEL. We wonder what was going on there. An afternoon exercise of the painterly arts perhaps. In "Carmel" we see the backside of a white convertible, top down, and the contents of a jagged and narow back yard. And long weedy grass. I think it's long and weedy! And a No Parking sign and a skinny watch dog. A mutt. The colors dance and so does the feeling of a familiar, perhaps lackadaisical, moment, when we ourselves captured, in words or paint, the unvarnished and uncropped splendor of a hot afternoon.
THE WORTHINGTON COMMUNITY CENTER is at 345 East Wilson Bridge Road. and it is open every day of the week. Call 431--0329. Ernest Lockridge has exhibited at High Road Gallery and Weisheimer Gallery and thru most of January and February he and Laurel have paintings and sculpture in what is bound to be a very exciting MEMBERS SHOW at the beautiful, I mean beautiful, JUNGHAUS ASSOCIATION GALLERY, 59 West Third Avenue, 291-8050.
JUNGHAUS Gallery is open to every one, but it is best to call first. Claire Hagan Bauza curates JungHaus exhibits which are always outstanding. The current Members Show includes oils, acrylics, watercolor, fibers, sculpture, an array of art media. Coming soon: a Members Show including photography and digital imaging.
"Still life is a contradiction in terms." -- Ernest Lockridge
Winter Dreams, a one man show by the contemporary American artist Ernest Lockridge, closed at The Worthington Art Center on January 14, 2008.-- My holiday rush had evolved into a smush, but I'm glad I got to the Art Center before Winter Dreams closed! The artist is working in acrylics,and his twelve painting exhibit was substantial.-- In other words, well painted, exciting.
An "unretired" Professor of English from The Ohio State University, Lockridge once taught at Yale and has three published novels under his belt. He is able to paint full time now, hence his descriptive "unretired," and he loves to travel. A few years back he and his wife, Laurel Richardson, poet/sociologist, co-authored Travels With Ernest, a lively mixed genre account of their travels. Lockridge's artistic efforts, many of them originating plein air, have taken him from Taos, New Mexico, to the Yucatan Peninsula, to Hawaii, and to other exciting places, including Schiller and WhetstoneParks in Columbus! Winter Dreams is visual evidence of the Richardson/Lockridge penchant for globe trotting.
As to painting, Lockridge's is grounded in his technical aplomb and in his familiarity with work of "greats"-- ranging from Sargent to Grandma Moses to Native American pictographs to the cave paintings at Chauvet." -- On his artist's statement he says that he began to use his first set of Sargents(!) paints when he was eight years old. Now he uses thickly applied paint and obvious brush strokes, like the Impressionists did. He is not afraid of color. His use of it although broad, is harmonious, meticulous. The tall BURNING BUSH, TASMANIA, seems about to explode with raw color and linear shapes.
THE FIRE THIS TIME, TAOS, 24 x 36 inches, a gorgeous canvas (board) was, of course, painted in Georgia O Keefe country in New Mexico, and in it masterful gradations of reds, oranges, browns, form a blizzard of tree foliage that nearly covers the side of a non-descript ranch house. The colors on both of these paintings are on fire, smouldering. Having lived in Ohio for years when he taught at The Ohio State University, Lockridge has internalized the audacious hues of Ohio autumns and has transported them to other venues, tamed them to his palette. -- And, speak of "taming," -- in LOST IN ICELAND, 20 x 24 inches, the strangely elided and juxtaposed shapes of two big horses stand flank by flank, nearly fill the "canvas," and create a study in design and color that is baffling. -- As I recall, a splat of midnight sun, or perhaps a day time moon -- is visible here. And iconic white aurioles, sun-like splats, glimmer in other of Lockridge's paintings. -- But you have to look.
The aesthetics of design and abstraction are present in Lost in Iceland. Yet, the large truncated shapes of the two horses suggest something primitive and one cannot help but think of pre-Norse myths and legends.
Again. Lockridge has mastered the elements of composition and color. Yet, his canvasses (or boards) manage to shimmy, to emit an electric charge. -- It's brush strokes in motion! This is true of TIDAL POOL, YUCATAN, 24 x 36 inches, in which a very small man in red trunks swims his way thru huge sheafs of white water toward the opening crevice that might suggest the birth canal. Lockridge's paintings are all somewhat abstract, yet the majority of them include elements of the representational. The swimmer in red trunks is a swimmer in red trunks! Lockridge's chosen modus, wisely, tends toward the maxim that "less is more."
FOUNDATION, a foray into grids and pure abstraction, is striking yet understated. The hues of SEDONA SUNSET emit lavender-sagebrush-deep purple-fragrances -- if you can see fragrances!
For Winter Dreams Lockridge's most "outre" effort is NO PARKING ZONE, CARMEL. We wonder what was going on there. An afternoon exercise of the painterly arts perhaps. In "Carmel" we see the backside of a white convertible, top down, and the contents of a jagged and narow back yard. And long weedy grass. I think it's long and weedy! And a No Parking sign and a skinny watch dog. A mutt. The colors dance and so does the feeling of a familiar, perhaps lackadaisical, moment, when we ourselves captured, in words or paint, the unvarnished and uncropped splendor of a hot afternoon.
THE WORTHINGTON COMMUNITY CENTER is at 345 East Wilson Bridge Road. and it is open every day of the week. Call 431--0329. Ernest Lockridge has exhibited at High Road Gallery and Weisheimer Gallery and thru most of January and February he and Laurel have paintings and sculpture in what is bound to be a very exciting MEMBERS SHOW at the beautiful, I mean beautiful, JUNGHAUS ASSOCIATION GALLERY, 59 West Third Avenue, 291-8050.
JUNGHAUS Gallery is open to every one, but it is best to call first. Claire Hagan Bauza curates JungHaus exhibits which are always outstanding. The current Members Show includes oils, acrylics, watercolor, fibers, sculpture, an array of art media. Coming soon: a Members Show including photography and digital imaging.
posted by Liz James at 10:15 AM
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