Révèle
by Wendy Artin
November 1st – December 9th, 2019
In Wendy Artin’s new exhibition, Révèle, the American artist explores absence, beauty and the corporeal in her representation of the human form. This exhibition brings together 57 pieces in watercolour, charcoal and chalk on white or brown paper capturing both live models and statues, all caught in a fleeting glance that belies stunning craft. The work reflects an ongoing conversation around stone and flesh that Artin has pursued as one of the world’s most brilliant watercolourists, while pushing her into new technical achievements.
“Artin’s work oscillates between the effortless grace of the human body asked not to move and the stillness of marble that craves to move,” says André Aciman, author of Call Me By Your Name. The collection also includes stunning watercolours of summer figs and peaches, which Artin captures in all their juicy decadent flesh. “If you thought the peach in Call Me By Your Name was hot, check out Wendy Artin’s,” says says Aciman. In his latest book Find Me, he also shares an appreciation with Artin for the most ambrosial fruit of all, the fig.
In Révèle, Artin shows fragments of the human body, allowing the viewer to imagine the rest. The light chalk or brushwork adds to our sense of a fleeting glimpse, caught in time. “Having the information be just barely there, almost there, or suggested, allows for breath, for relief,” says Artin. “The space to breathe has always been for me the white of the paper,” she says. “Using brown paper instead meant doing something different. I wanted them to look as if they had just happened, like, poof! The white chalk barely grazing the surface before flitting off again, like pollen.”
Fragments reveal, give meaning, beauty, perhaps unease. Here the human body is present in all its pulsating life, its joy and fragility. The live models are in voluptuous poses, sprawled out after merriment and bacchanal. “They’re a celebration of our round bodies, velvety torsos, our smooth skin reflecting who we are in all our lovable fascinating seductive selves. All too often hung shamefully in the bedroom or bathroom, we need to liberate the nude,”Artin says.
Artin lives with her family in Rome. The once upon a time nomad arrived there 25 years ago, where she would start a rock collection in hopes of weighing her down to one spot. “I still think about those rocks when I think of the materials that I use. The rocks are the chalk and the charcoal. Watercolour is like flesh, while charcoal and chalk are hard and cold, but give the illusion of light and depth and warmth,” she says.
The Eternal City provides one side of the coin in the fountain for Artin, with its classicism and its eloquent light being a constant companion.
And if nudes can cause the eye to avert, statues invite closer inspection. With all Artin’s work, the viewer is drawn in and up close rewarded: the illusion vanishing into the abstraction of chalk dust or the residue of pigment from watercolour evaporated. “Stone imitates flesh in statues, and then again once removed is the watercolor or charcoal imitating the light on the stone that imitates flesh,” she said.
Statues and live models, motion and stillness, anatomy and light, fragments asking questions of absences, Artin’s latest exhibition will please her current admirers and surely bring her new fans.
