Anthony Goicolea at the Jepson Center

You can see Atlanta born artist Anthony Goicolea's work now through January 8th 2012, right here in Savannah at the Jepson Center. Representing a decade of his work, and showcasing his photography, paintings and drawings, the work is emotionally evocative and visually stunning. He first broke out on the art scene with a series of photographs exploring primitive aspects of burgeoning adolescence (and all that lie therein!). After graduating from Pratt Institute (my alma mater!) he was awarded a Joan Mitchell scholarship of 10,000 to continue his work.

I jumped over to the Jepson this morning to take a look and I'm so glad I did. To me, his work is an amalgamation of everyday estrangement, ritualisic unity versus dislocation, sympathetic polarities, and the age old "tension of opposites". Some of his work brings the vulgar, normally hidden, into daylight, while other of his compositions are fantastical and surprising juxtapositions; like the wolves walking through the graveyard, or the cornucopia of fruit falling out of the junker. It calls to mind the duality of life and that many different kinds of existence are happening simultaneously. The most interesting outcome in viewing his work is that suddenly the eery doesn't seem quite so eery anymore, it just seems like its more okay to acknowledge it--if you look closely at the bottom photograph, those are hands hanging onto those cement blocks. Go to his website for even better closeups of his work.

 

Under I, Siamese Twins, Black House, Jettisoned

For me, Anthony Goicolea's work combines some of the most arresting elements of Andrew Wyeth, Gerhard Richter, and Cindy Sherman. Of course, storytelling will never be out of style, and viewing pieces of the story and experiencing a narrative is always so compelling. We often re-read sentences or chapters and so it is with paintings. We re-read/re-view it over the course of our lives and it keeps changing. Our eye hovers in one place longer than others, and we notice new things that we're always there. We're able to appreciate the whole in pieces and digest it in a series of bites. Sometimes I think that's why life is broken down into days, and why sometimes brilliant people and stories always have a touch of madness. It's all just too much.

Search Party, 2007; The Flood, 2008, Night Sitting

If you are local to Savannah, definitely go see this exhibition!