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33 Collective is a multi-leveled
art studio space exhibiting many eclectic styles. Concrete floors and
walls give the space an industrial feel while the colorful and eccentric
art warms the gallery halls. Member works are featured in turn in the
gallery. This month's feature is lifetime artist and professor of figure
drawing and computer art at Joliet Junior College, Steve Sherrell. The
solo exhibition was held in the back corner of the building but rather
than feeling isolated, the back room has the benefit of floor to roof
windows, framing his show in warm light as seen from outside.
Sherrell's exhibit spans 21 years of his oeuvre, from 1988 through the
present, and incorporates a spectrum of his past techniques, advertising
his long and evolutionary career as a constantly experimental artist.
The memes Sherrell is referring to here are more than just the absurd
fascinations of his subjects, but also those of his career. The oldest
pieces on display are simple in style, solid in color and abstract in
subject. They set the mood for the rest of the exhibit by representing
the state of silent ambivalence Sherrell is playing with. His pieces
say very little by themselves for wont of detail and context and so
invite his audience to build their own layers atop the foundation of
the often abstract landscapes they provide.
Davero (2009) Steve
Sherrell
The collection is embodied by mixed media -- mostly oils, acrylics,
screen printing and digital images on masonite or paper. A light wood
frame was used for some pieces, others being left unframed. Many had
a collage-like affect, though simple, that varied from comic book dissections
to various ink transfers to digital manipulations. The works often had
a single subject, the meanings of which were kept ambiguous, but intriguing.
A 2' x 3' painting of a baby's pacifier in calm pastel tones, covered
in a texture rich lacquer, seems to stare you right in the face, begging
you to consider it in unfearful meticulousness. What is the importance
of a pacifier? What needs pacifying? Its strange sexual undertones taunting,
meanwhile. If not one single, simple subject, than multiple symbols
and images were used in equally emphatic asymmetry in haphazard disarray,
engaging the viewer with many possible roads of interpretive travel.
Among his contemporary work is a white-washed mix of arrows, airplanes
and bozo the clown, the intention of which is to fling you into a mental
flurry of wonder, and, that failing, will at least leave the viewer
charmed, albeit confused. Other works are more realized, including a
large scale piece with drips flowing both up and down. Elsewhere, a
photograph layered with subtle painterly affects portrays a graffitied
window from Florence. There are also pieces of absolute abstraction
incorporating a crackling effect with a clear medium and the curious
whimsy of slightly abnormal surface shape -- that is, Sherrell cuts
small divots into the sides of his masonite, so the audience is not
held captive in a perfect rectangle. This compliments his style and
message in its blatantly but not overwhelmingly deconstructivist manner.
This work is meant to taunt and tantalize. Sherrell himself admits that
these works have been chosen not for their stylistic or subjective similarities,
but by the response they illicit: surprise, intrigue, and a visceral
experience. Bright, bold colors and large brush strokes where brush
strokes are present, next to unfamiliar image juxtapositions has the
striking effect of a voice mumbling some delicious secret to whomever
passes by. The viewer is asked to have fun and enjoy painting's engaging
side without sacrificing meaning or pathos.
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