A blending of three styles

AT THE GALLERIES

On rare occasions, walking into an art gallery -- just walking in --

can be an experience in and of itself. Rather than browsing from wall

to wall with that slow gallery stroll, your eyes are full of input

and you don’t know where to start.

Such is the case at Marion Meyer Contemporary Art, 354 N. Coast

Hwy. The current exhibit forms a conceit, an extended metaphor, for

the relationship between artists, language and perception. It is

titled (using another metaphor) “Menage a trois.” Three artists --

Georges Monfils, Paula Schoen and Christian Lopez -- have taken a

variety of themes ranging from an idea (“Words”) to a color

(“Curves,” where each artist was assigned a range of the spectrum) to

a material (“Silhouette,” three plywood cut-outs) and each created

their own expression. Each series is hung in threes on the gallery

walls, side by side.

Witness the “Word Series.” The three long canvases (60x24),

rhythmically spaced, are almost shocking in their different

approaches to the same idea. Schoen’s oil on canvas is titled,

“Written in the stars.” The majority of the surface is comprised of a

deep black sky dotted with bright dots in a range of whites. Below, a

gibbous moon hangs above a bright green and blue horizon. It is

almost dizzying: the point of view unclear as the eyes are cast

steadily up to see the stories all cultures write by connecting the

points hung in the air. But cast your eyes down on the canvas and the

metaphorical title becomes literal. Finely scratched letters spell

out the familiar prayer to the night across the horizon’s ground,

“starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight ... “ and “twinkle,

twinkle, little star ... “ They are small, almost invisible, so the

preciousness of the two songs is negated; instead, the words seem

small and sad compared to the complex stories above.

These lines of color and abstract horizons mark Schoen’s style;

and her relationship to the other artists sometimes seems to be

located in her color choices. But this only serves to highlight the

variety and range found in all artistic vision.

Lopez’s “Word Series” canvas, “Amor,” (mixed media on canvas) is

starkly different. “LOVE” appears reversed, as if we are looking out

a store window, in bold, airbrushed capital letters at the top of the

canvas, “AMR” at the bottom, missing its “O.” The lost “O” is to be

found looped through the “O” of “LOVE” above, the beginning of a

chain-bound to cliche ideas of romantic love? To the idea of love

itself? The canvas is metallic, sepia brown, aged. Between the two

words we find the back view of a classical male nude, a torso missing

arms and legs. Paint runs in rust and steel hues down the canvas.

This marks Lopez’s style in each series, a kind of sexy cynicism.

Georges Monfils’s “Word” canvas is even more extreme. “Imprint”

(acrylic on canvas) is a glossy crimson. From a distance, raised

areas of the canvas resemble the whorls of a fingerprint, complete

with areas that look like smears. But closer examination reveals that

they are in fact raised words, a streaming prose poem titled

“E!Motion.” The text of the poem is printed separately, but I

recommend reading it off the canvas. The hot color, the intense

stream-of-consciousness words, the form they take (an imprint, a

statement of individuality) all operate together like an illuminated

text, each addressing the form and expression of the other.

As if this weren’t enough, after you are finished taking in each

canvas individually, you must step back and see what relationship

each has to the other.

The same is true for each series in the exhibit. “Silhouette

Series” is a set of free-standing life-size plywood cutouts of three

figures. Schoen’s “Escape” is a reclining female form, painted in

those horizontal bands of color to resemble day on one side and night

on the other, a contemplative nude of only slightly suggestive

sensuality.

Lopez’s “Spirit of the Free” is a standing male figure,

big-shouldered. On one side, the surface is entirely composed of a

female face, outlined in screws and metal cutouts. Blue and red paint

runs throughout, and bright-gold lips are provocatively placed at the

base of the stand. On the reverse, the figure has graceful metal

wings, shedding silver feathers onto the base.

The cutout woman in Monfils’s piece, “Hidden Assets,” is a

spread-legged, high-heeled provocation, resting her head on her hand,

holding a day-glow rendering of a crouched male nude. On one side, he

is hot pink and lemon yellow; on the other, he is blue and violet.

She encompasses him confidently in a similar manner to Lopez’s male

encompassing the female, and Schoen’s woman containing the horizon.

Our shadows, it seems, reveal much about ourselves.

These differences and similarities are repeated in the “Milk

Cartons” -- three cleverly shaped canvases, each shaped as they are

titled. Schoen’s “New Moon” is a horizon of impossible color:

midnight blue and orange, giving the comic shape a surprising grace.

Lopez, in “Matthew 7:6” (which is the source of the phrase “pearls

before swine”) is a film noir nightmare in black and white on hot

pink, loaded with innuendo: a huge black high-heeled pump surrounded

by a broken pearl necklace. Monfils’s “Got Faith?” exchanges the

Madonna for a model-sensual male, full-lipped, palms ready to

receive, striding on a winged cherubic face.

The exhibition, taken as a whole, verges on an installation, a

work of art in and of itself. The walls are painted in bold colors,

bright orange-yellow, eggplant, dark blue and puce. Each series, hung

like triptychs, seems to speak to the next, adding layers of irony

and revelation as you move about the gallery. This should be no

surprise, since the exhibit was conceived, designed and hung by the

artists themselves. They chose the colors of the walls, the placement

of the paintings, even the music playing in the background. Such a

rare and vibrant synergy between three such different artists is not

to be missed.

* BOBBIE ALLEN is a poet and writer who has taught art theory and

criticism. She currently teaches at Saddleback College.