Musing on the Nude at Jennifer Norback Fine Art
Carrie McGath
Etienne Gros, Fumee
The March 5, 2010 opening of The Nude with artists Etienne Gros, Obaji Nyambi, and William Utermohlen at Jennifer Norback Fine Art in River North celebrated the human form while libations flowed through the packed gallery. The works by the three featured artists were intriguing expressions of the ageless art trope of nude studies. Each artist tackled this convention in their own manner, but all were compelling expressions of the human nude.
Etienne Gros’ carbon pieces, Fumee, reminded me immediately of a Man Ray-ian
x-ray mood that seductively gasp from the wall with their smokey contours. They are calm, but intense. They are quiet in their sincerity in a deep contemplation of the nude. The title of Fumee, translated as “smoke” or “steam”, fit these romantic works that are dreamy in their fogginess. What made these stand out so unabashedly for me was their ability to reform before my mind’s eye as I stood with them. They would appear to be tussled bedsheets, then they would appear to be florals, even liquid forms all while they were nudes. In these studies, I see a limitless passion and a genuine love of the folds, nooks, curves, and the very abstractions that make up these bodies.
Etienne Gros, Fumee
The pieces of the backs of two different women’s heads in their own frame are poignant in their whispering narrative. The viewer wants to know what goes on in these two pieces: what has captivated the subject and what has occurred in the space that frames the shots. The two carbons next to these show an embracing couple and a female body that looks to be moving or bending. The smokey use of the carbon give Gros’ pieces a noir-like mystery that is tantalizing and wholly alluring.
William Utermohlen’s pieces in the show are strong yet soft, showing a controlled strength in his execution of the works. Caged Figure from 1996 is drawn with charcoal on paper and shows a nude man in a caged space. The figure is looking straight onto the viewer, but his face is completely featureless. This subject can be any man, for his individual aspects are nonexistent in the piece. But the casual stance of the man speaks not to being captured in a cage, but instead seems to illustrate an ease and peace in his situation. There is play here with the viewer not knowing how to take this, or at least that is how I felt. I was feeling that I should sympathize with him, but this was an emotion that this subject did not desire from me. The result of this amalgam of emotion gives a viewer a deep experience in working through this beautiful but disturbing image that reminded me a little of the effortless nude work by Larry Rivers.
Utermohlen’s 1974 oil on canvas, Three Figures, is very different from Caged Figure, not possessing an Existential Post-Modernism as Caged Figure aptly possessed. Instead, this a more traditional exercise in the convention of the nude, showing three women from different angles. I am inclined to think that these figures are of one woman and the painting shows her progression of disrobing. This intimacy of this work is enchanting. Many visitors to the gallery that night looked longingly at Three Figures. It is accessible and truly beautiful and its intimacy to the viewer draws us in with its “come hither” mystique.
Obaji Nyambi, Jenniphar's Wedding Night
Intimacy turns to a romantic voyeurism in the lithographs by Obaji Nyambi. Jenniphar’s Wedding Night from 1992 is eerie in its complicated narrative where two women sit, one wearing a dress sitting on a suitcase while the other sits on the bed nude. The viewer cannot see the head of the clothed woman, but the feeling is one of love (be it friendship or romantic love), the deep emotion and ease between the women is apparent and complex. Jenniphar and Company also from 1992 speaks well with Wedding Night in its innate meditation on the relationship of the women depicted. In all of Nyambi’s lithographs, the viewer feels as if they are watching intimate moments making the viewer into a voyeur. The environments are domestic: a home or a studio, or hotel rooms. Our observation of these closed spaces is complicated by our voyeurism, adding even more dimension to his works. The exhibition as a whole is tight and well-conceived with these three artists working well together in their individual expressions of the nude.
The Nude exhibition at Jennifer Norback is on view now through April 13, 2010. The gallery is located in River North at 217 West Huron. Winter hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 11:00 to 6:00 and by appointment.
