MID-ATLANTIC
We tend to dismiss realism as a
clueless record of light on objects. But
truly great "realists" display more than fine technique; they look
for new myths, to make sense of mere sensation. Alyson Weege (Gallery K, September 3-28, 2002) approaches realism
and history painting-panoramic views of dramatic landscapes, across which
larger than life scenes are enacted-to explore one new myth; i.e. the female
psyche.
Weege, a very
technically accomplished painter, pictures a curious world rendered from an
alternative point of view, one that is decidedly female. Because the paintings
establish such an alienated perspective, the sum of the parts does not always
add up. Hence, even the most ordinary
objects resonate with mystery. In Gift Box (2001) for instance, a realistically
rendered bag, with its harsh metallic sheen, is a foil to pictures pinned on
the background wall-a soldier, a thoroughbred, and muscle men. Seeing's
relationship to knowing already fascinates Weege, but what does the bag, by
nature an interior being, reveal about itself? Why do those two leering men,
mere pictures inside the picture, lust after the gift bag? Given the visceral
textures in this open-ended narrative, Weege turns the still life into a
dreamscape.
Likewise, The
Telescope (2002) is fanciful, charming and a little deranged. A group of
children share a dinner table with droll adults, a horse, fantasy creatures and
Mary-the-Mother-of-God. The painting's zaniness draws from the split
consciousness of a little girl in pigtails who seems to dominate her alter ego
sitting across the table from her. Certainly, the willfulness of a child,
demanding indulgence, excess and unconditional love, can never overcome the
adult world, held hostage here by wishful thinking, but nonetheless, jaded,
corrupt and sour.
Debutante (2002), one of a series of portraits, is a gaze through the other end of the telescope. A middle-aged woman with long straight hair sits in an empty gallery room, a kind of Rapunzel in her castle, wearing a blue velvet dress as cold and metallic as the gift bag. A Jack Russell terrier sits on a towel at her feet. Why is this middle-aged woman exploring a moment of transition, from teen to womanhood, and why is she now so isolated? Here, the nitpicky details that conjure up the illusion of realism, the precise perspective of wooden planks converging at the back wall, the outdoor scene crammed into a narrow window, the crisp folds of her dress, add up to a less than whole scene. We cannot look at the details and think a description safely contains the world. No reportage; lots of mystery.
Weege's
"history" paintings, like Hero and Equestrian Portrait (both 2002) do
not seem as resolved as the still lives and portraits. Both are stunning in
detail, and Weege creates atmospheric landscapes as adeptly as she documents
the many stages of the human face. However, history here tends towards
histrionics because the scenes feel overheated, overwrought. But it could be
wrong to dismiss these pictures as failed melodrama. Indeed, Hero could be a
secular retelling of the Christ story, with the feminine figures honoring the
symbols of Christ and the males standing in for the centurions.
In Alyson Weege's
world, everything has a story because everything is caught in a net of
influence and intrigues. If a myth emerges, it concerns passion, a mix of
failed innocence, sexual frisson and death. If this isn't the stuff of a
"female psyche," it is definitely the substance of Weege's realism.