Opinion: Josh Dayton, Norman Mercer Exhibits
Two exhibits at the Arlene Bujese Gallery recall simpler, less self-conscious, and maybe ultimately happier times in the art world.
Josh Dayton, whose family roots on the East End go back to the 17th century, shows that he's absorbed the world-class talents of Pollock and de Kooning and is slowly but inexorably moving beyond them. In the rear gallery, Norman Mercer's cast-acrylic sculptures bring to mind the harder-edged, more optically inclined art of a later generation, one that turned its back on the perceived excesses of both Abstract Expressionism and Pop.
The two artists demonstrate that there's still rich terrain to be mined in the past, but there are pitfalls as well.
Buoyant Approach
Mr. Dayton's incredibly fluid watercolors seem to spring, like his predecessors' experiments, directly from the unconscious, where all manner of pent-up demons and obsessions provided artists with some of their most vigorous subjects.
But if one compares Mr. Dayton's lyrical compositions with similar works from the 1940s, there's an earnestness - and often an awkwardness - that's missing here. The younger artist seems to be saying, "Hey, let's lighten up with this existential stuff and have a little fun."
Which is not to call his approach Expressionism Lite, but it is agreeably buoyant and ingratiating, especially in the subtle, earthy tones he deploys in works like "Friends of the Italians" and "Let's Burn."
The figurative associations in these paintings can also lend a comic touch. I couldn't help seeing "Black Figure, Red Fields" as a pair of happy creatures absorbed in a mad tango.
Ambitious Mixed Media
When Mr. Dayton turns to ambitious mixed media - ceramics against a backdrop of collaged scraps of acrylic painting - he's on dicier but more original turf.
The vaguely biomorphic clay fragments erupt from the picture plane, sometimes overwhelming the high-keyed, equally fragmented ground. It's a difficult balancing act that doesn't always succeed, in part because the viewer sometimes gets the impression the artist is recycling everything in his studio.
"Bracket and Web" feels unresolved, as though the right half were tugging away to be in a different place, but "Mr. Umbrella," with its squiggles of terracotta across the top, manages to keep the eye happily roving across its busy surface.
Mr. Dayton is at his best when he's showing more restraint. In "Half Eyelash," a sinuous, ceramic ara- bes que grows from a crumpled masklike shape and is balanced and echoed by two calligraphic fragments in the upper left and right corners. It's a work that calls to mind the best of synthetic Cubism, and it shows tremendous promise.
Sculpture By Mercer
Norman Mercer's clear acrylic sculptures come in odd geometric shapes and depend on a kind of ocular trickery for their impact.
As one moves around, the bright cellophane hues embedded in the works refract and recombine, somewhat like the innards of a kaleidoscope. It's work that recalls the optical experiments of artists like Bridget Riley and Larry Bell, who have never been high on this viewer's list.
Still, one has to admire Mr. Mercer's skill and chutzpah. "Tetrahedron" shows a surprisingly delicate mingling of circles and triangles within; in "Platonic Series VIII: Embrace," two "rhomboid" forms are joined by a clear circular ring.
Restraint Is Affecting
Mr. Mercer, too, is most affecting when he's at his most restrained.
"Dodecagonal Helicoid" is a simple twisting shape with an elegance the others lack, and "Wall Piece" is a half-ring of violet and gold, reflected in the mirror behind it, so that the ring becomes a whole, and the complementary colors set up subtle vibrations.
It would be interesting to see Mr. Mercer abandon the full-color spectrum to concentrate more on shape, luminosity, and the other possibilities of this difficult medium.