TEXT BY MICHAELA MULLIN | VIEW IMAGES
Chuck Hipsher | THINK/FEEL/GO
Artist Chuck Hipsher’s new body of work in THINK/FEEL/GO is a show of exclamations. The power involved in the making, and that sensed in their viewing, while impossible to be completely commensurate, are unbelievably close. Grammatically, as well, the line and dot of the marks of exclamatory utterance and action are all here.
The exhibit is voluminous and velocitous, but the title does not simply tell the story of process in sequence as it might lead one to believe. Beyond that, it captures a simultaneity of intentional movement and motion, which these large mixed-media works embody and embed, engulf and enchant. Mono-, dip-, and triptychs become storyboards of memory and imagination, the two very things that are framed daily by time and space. With them, Hipsher creates chaos that finds its right composition. He projects media like vocals, screaming and singing—and he hybridizes the two. There is a narrative arc here, one that is personal but also universal, complete with verse, chorus, and bridges.
“Indianola,” a mixed-media diptych on canvas, at 60 x 96 inches, is a large reminder for Hipsher of travels as a child to the hot air balloon classics and Perseid meteor showers that occurred every August. In this manifest memory, he has included four descending dots from upper right to lower left. He also incorporates other strokes of galactic intimacy upon a blue surface, which evoke the feeling of looking up at dawn and dusk and the simultaneity of things one sees in the sky—be they brightly colored balloons or specs of light the size of stones.
The 60 x 60 “Monster” comes from a very personal and traumatic place in Hipsher’s childhood. Referencing a time that he and his siblings spent in a children’s home, this raw work holds moments and things like a box of unwanted keepsakes. The spyrographic spinning color represent evenings spent making drawings such as this while loved ones suffered; the mandible-looking black marks represent that of an atlas beetle, which a child might be both fascinated and terrified by. The blue, white, and silver are reminiscent of the Eskimo Pie package used as a lure, and the red descending dots are the mind’s dreaded steps to the basement, where no one wanted to go. The staunch verticality of blue and white, perpendicular to the swirling of black, offers a resistance that is critical for the telling of such stories.
“Impact” was influenced by his personal form of paying it forward; Hipsher investigates, through his mediums, how impact is reaction in reverse. The dots in this piece have a forceful placement and meaning in size, shape, and striking color. Like translucent orange luminous orbs on a tsunamic wave—the larger one rides the crest of the ocean foam; the smaller one exists at the core of wave refraction. Blue, white, and black surround each point, conjuring the deep space of the sea and the reflections it gives US as reversed reaction.
“Woo Hoo,” a mixed-media diptych, was inspired by laughing in the face of adversity. Hipsher says he allows his paintings to go where they will because he cannot control them. His love of orange and its collision with blue, he considers a delight of opposites, given their places on the color wheel. His pinks cannot be excused from the “holy color alliances, either, nor his stark, rude, and sexy whites,” as he calls them. He is excited when negative space becomes positive, and he aims always to trick the eye at these media gatherings, or parties. He likens this to the sentiment, “Don’t believe it’s over when it’s only just begun.”
Speaking of endings and beginnings, “The Great Beyond,” a large-scale mixed-media diptych, at 60 x 120, was born from an ever-present investigation of what we think death is. Hipsher wonders on this mystery: Warp speed through the universe? A long black nap? as David Bowie predicted. The right panel of this diptych is a wall mural of deep purple space pasted onto the canvas. The photo-realistic stars are not dissimilar to his inadvertent white dots of paint, and in his creation process, he wondered if his marks mimic stars, or if they are, in fact, the same as his dots.
“Sl’ Ozy Misyatsia” is a mixed media triptych on canvas and bleached velvet. The Ukrainian title, meaning “Tears of the Moon” in English, comes from Hipsher’s infuriation at the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Given his frustration of global response and lack of proactive movement to prevent such an ugly unfolding, the crumpled bleach shadow of the top panel of velvet represents this ugliness of war: “the mangled, dark, and downright sinful.” Juxtaposing this chemical with a luxuriant soft material makes for an unexpected and dramatic conclusion. The vibrancy of the bottom two panels is the abstract depiction of a beautiful country and its people prior to this aggression, and the two dots, in blue and yellow, are unfurled lines like the Ukrainian flag.
But compassion remains. And Impact is both negative and positive, like ions and icons, and all kinds of space. Hipsher’s love of music dominates, and that has an emotionally moving effect on his work. His piece, “Superstar,” a mixed-media work, incorporates large three-dimensional letters spelling Y-O-U at its top panel. It contains his reactions to two songs with this title, one from 1971 by The Carpenters, retelling the classic tale of lost love; the other, more current, from Beach House, in 2021. These two songs encapsulate the truth about where the power of love exists … first. Not in the object of desire or recipient of our feelings, but in us, in YOU. It is the reactionary reverse of how we often contemplate romantic relationships, and Hipsher here has made a breakthrough and it is writ large!
Stop in to see this explosive and expositional exhibit through April 2, or view it here online.
View artworks included in this exhibit
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