April Issue 2000
Gesture
Charles Ailstock, Student Gallery, College of Charleston
A Review
by Lese Corrigan
A moody, intense exhibition of new works by Charles Ailstock from the Studio Art Department at The College of Charleston was shown last month. This exhibit was made up of five paintings, nine etchings, two etched plates and three sculptures. The etchings are the most dramatic of the works. These works are strong, powerful impressions of mood and the nature of motion stopped. It is surprising for student work. None of the works had any labels or descriptions leaving one to create one's own stories and struggling for a manner of verbal depiction which separates one work from the other.
Two dimensional art is about making marks on a surface. Gesture drawings are marks on a surface showing structure and volume without a focus on detail or specificity. These are quick drawings indicating a pose, the essential line or movement and often the mood of a figure. There is no truly defined form only movement in space and sense of the tactile experience involved in the pose. Many think of contour and gesture drawings as scribbles or scribble scrabble as the children say today. If this is true, in the case of Ailstock's work, he makes scribbles into art although there is a linear sense reminiscent of a spirograph gone wild or a slinky flattened. He shows us figures as simplified, massed forms which are shadowy as though one is watching a Samuel Beckett play. His Goya-esque etchings are dark, with a screen pattern intensifying the darkness and the textural sense of the work as well as adding another layer or "screen" between the viewer and the viewed. Ailstock accomplishes a heavy texture which is fairly unusual for etchings with his combination of rounded swirls and the square pattern of the screen design used. Adding to the complexity of surface is the use of chine collé where an oriental paper is glued to the printing surface and becomes the recipient of the printing ink. In his very triangular compositions lines of the collapsed spirals suggest the chaos of the world while the intricacy of life appears in the almost tangibly tangle of muscles. The tension produced in the balance between static and the implied gestures of the figures is mesmerizing. The energy unfurls as you move away from the faceless figures following the string of life into the dark background and back again to the white areas in the centers of the figures where the three dimensional effect is created by the lack of line.
The three sculptures presented are not as readily identifiable as Ailstock's although the twine and rope are reminiscent of the linear sense in the etchings. Concrete stones and weights provide sense of humanity's tie to the earth or of boats moored with a twine pieces appeared to be formed as sails hinting at the of harnessing wind. A second sculpture was like a cat of nine tails or catapult or even the wheel of a human powered mill stone. A sensation exploring the work ethic of plodding on was palpable while the other three dimensional piece was a hanging creation which appeared to be of an entirely different elk and less decipherable although it still utilized the rope as a structural continuity.
The paintings are monochromatic figures in similar postures as in etchings. They are large scale while the etchings where relatively large for prints, they were small in comparison. The paintings could be the gesture drawings beginning to come to life and the one painting with the thickest paint is purely gestural with the form just beginning. The painting containing two figures who appear to be working on a very physical project or in combative conflict (and how closely related are those actions?) are reminiscent of one of George Bellows's paintings depicting a boxing match.
It would be of interest to know if an assignment spurred the work contained in this exhibition and what Ailstock's theme or theory of exploration is.
Ailstock appears through his work to be a skilled, matured artist. What he creates beyond school will be of great interest. He has already made a gesture in several ways: the movement of figures captured, the artist's gesture or mark making expressing his mood or thought and the marks made implying the subjects posture or pose that define a studious gesture drawing. There is also a gesture in his homage given to artists who have preceded him. His appreciation is evident and his continued exploration through the creation of a multifaceted body of works will be a gesture of appreciation for life itself.
Lese Corrigan is a native Charlestonian who is an artist, educator, writer and consultant in the visual arts field. She also is manager of The Verner Gallery in Charleston.
Mailing Address: Carolina Arts, P.O. Drawer
427, Bonneau, SC 29431
Telephone, Answering Machine and FAX: 843/825-3408
E-Mail: carolinart@aol.com
Subscriptions are available for $18 a year.
Carolina Arts
is published monthly by Shoestring
Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc.
Copyright© 2000 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston
Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts
from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts
Online, Copyright© 2000 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved
by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use
without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina
Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.