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Finally, March There’s a couple of real doozies over at Rodger LaPelle Galleries (www.netreach.net/~lapelle), 122 North Third Street. Simon Huelsbeck cuts loose with “’Thirteenth and Arch’ and Other New Paintings,” while Bruce Evans offers up “’Oscar’ and Other New Paintings’.” Both exhibitions run concurrently through March 30. The mix here between both artists channels a hyper-realism that is a contrast in color and the absence of it, with Huelsbeck featuring detailed work in sepia, while Evans hits a similar note at times amidst his electric color. At once photographic and surreal, Simon Huelsbeck drops paintings whose monochrome imperative is necessary, while Philly is scattered among the ruins of our shared psyches. Details are impounded and compounded, their reflexive reality made manifest through compositions where the lyric impulse yields a narrative path into the inner limits. Pineal activation is warranted while the intensity of this artist’s extreme vision puts our breath on hold for moments that clock by in increments stretched to the breaking point. But fear not, we breathe, you bet we do. Bruce Evans breaks out work that brings out the birdbrain in us all. Tight close-ups of parrots and plenty other winged wonders are offered up in anthropomorphic exactness. These ornithological specimens just might be familiars of those demons that have replaced your neighbors, or else birds that drive people to go postal, while other pieces are surreal ventures where birds and beasts alike foment some weird creation myth. Kinda Poppy but never sloppy, this hard-edged art is a must see bursting with both detailed color plus black and white exactitude. This dynamic duo has got what it takes and how: chops that match their inspiration. Posted on Friday March 7, '03, Aroundphilly.com Past meets present Simon Huelsbeck's paintings at the Rodger LaPelle Galleries also might be characterized as landscapes, although they are urban scenes. Like Humpton's photographs, they present imaginative but improbable combinations, in this case of past and present. Huelsbeck paints in oil on wood in unusually narrow formats - 21 inches high by 9 wide is a typical size. He also paints in sepia monochrome, the look of antique photographs. The paintings even appear to have been composed from photographs. The pictures mix past and present seamlessly, in a way that gives each equal value. This is apparent, for instance, in the show's largest painting, Thirteenth and Arch. Huelsbeck plants the Convention Center on one side of the street and a large neoclassical building, perhaps a bank, on the corner opposite. Five children dressed in the clothes of an earlier era pose in the intersection. The painting dramatizes what is constantly apparent in Philadelphia: that past and present conflate everywhere, and that the past is intrinsic to the present. Huelsbeck's charming, piquant reveries help us to remember that vital bit of insight. Rodger LaPelle, 122 N. Third St. Noon to 6 p.m. Wednesdays through Sundays. Through March 30. 215-592-0232.P Published/Posted on Friday, March 14, '03 Philadelphia Inquirer
Published/Posted on Friday, March 7, '03 Daily News |
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