Transfixed by DeLap

ARTISTICALLY SPEAKING

I’ve never been one for Minimalist art. Geometric forms with

elemental colors remind me of the Colorforms I played with as a child

-- great for learning about shapes and color names, but far from my

idea of compelling. I’m more of a representational and surreal kind

of gal. Give me a good Dali (preferably “The Ghost of Vermeer of

Delft Which Can Be Used as a Table”) or Rembrandt’s “An Old Man in

Military Costume” and I’m happy.

But walking past Peter Blake Gallery on North Coast Highway, I

found myself transfixed by the work of Tony DeLap. It’s not the first

time I’ve come across the Corona del Mar artist’s oddly shaped

sculptural canvases. DeLap had a major retrospective a few years ago

at the Orange County Museum of Art. I remember being fascinated by

the way he uses form. That fascination still holds.

DeLap creates shapes that shift, based on where the viewer stands

and the light flows. It’s often been said that his life-long interest

in magic has contributed to his art. That can be seen in the slanted,

seamless edges of his canvases, which wrap and warp in amazing ways.

If you’re interested in the technical side of how he makes the

canvases, a few of his studies also hang on the gallery walls.

Looking at DeLap’s paintings can be a form of meditation. Let your

mind clear and see what appears in the canvas in front of you. I

walked the exhibit without a sale sheet, trying to figure out what

each piece reminded me of.

I saw a kimono opening, a blue-gray whale, two red hens crossing a

street and a big blue square that decided to join the ocean. I’m sure

each of these pieces will look completely different to someone else

-- sort of an artistic Rorschach test.

Discovering what the artist named his works added a new level of

enjoyment. What I perceived as a black kimono opening -- an almost

square of black with a sensuous line of wood curving through it --

DeLap named “Keep on Cloning.” The hens crossing the street -- two

vibrantly red sort-of rectangles with beaks hung side by side --

turned out to be named “Odd or Even.”

DeLap’s work completely overshadows that of the other artist being

shown at the Peter Blake Gallery -- Joe Goode. Goode’s series of

paintings on various types of paper seems to consist of seeing how

many different ways the artist can sign his own initials in a

free-flowing black script. One painting looks a lot like the next and

all seem rather self-indulgent. I’m sure there’s a deeper meaning to

it all, but it was lost on me.

I have seen other Goode paintings -- most notably his Cloud

Paintings and the Cause and Effect series. What is on display now is

far from what I would consider his best work.

* JENNIFER K MAHAL is a freelance writer and former features

editor of the Daily Pilot. She can be reached at [email protected].