Howard Hersh - Review

Howard Hersh

Stunning Surfaces: A Gallery Round-up

by Jocelyn Lieu
The Santa Fe Reporter
Volume 16, Issue 42
April 10–16, 1991

Appropriately, the theme of alchemy runs through Santa Fe artist Howard Hersh's show of new encaustic paintings at the LewAllen Gallery. It's appropriate because the thick wax Hersh brushes on over his collages drawings and scrawled, half-seen messages tinges them with sense of mystery and transformation.

In the encaustic method, wax is melted, mixed with dry pigment, and layered over the surface. Here, Hersh's rich sculptural textures are tempered by the spare colos - blacks, whites, and grays accented with some reds, blues, and allows - that dominate this show. On the whole, the result is stunning. The surfaces Hersh builds on in these recent works range from collages that incorporate pages from a French text on mysticism to "found" artwork In Sure Nature. Hersh took a framed print of a typical flea market sublime landscape and painted over it, frame and all, in -die and red-tinted wax. A happy le composition, Sure Nature may be seen as a nod to another contemporary artist who paints over frames Howard Hodgkin. It's also a sly statement about what Hersh is not doing: Painting landscapes or anything at all Romantic. Hersh's country is interior and expressionist, though it draws liberally on the old myths, the natural world, and the human form.

That we're in for something out of this world is clear from the start. Wheel of Fortune is typical of the paintings in this show in that it includes collaged engravings of the "roue de fortune," "images de metamorphoses alchemiques," and chatcoaled words swirled in an encaustic soup. A real beauty in this vein is Back (of Neck), which takes as its centerpiece two pages of text dealing with parapsychology and a photograph of, what else? the back of someone's neck.

The quiet, dark sensuality of this piece is continued in Only Fair. Hersh's accomplished life drawings of nude women are interspersed with photographs of open hands, with the life and love lines scored in graphite. This mixed media work includes; a Santa Fe touch: The backward banner of the Santa Fe Reporter pasted in the lower right hand comer.

Other pieces that make successful use of drawings include Smell the Roses, Stretched Drawing, and Drawing Pool. The last has cut-and-pasted nudes collaged with leaf prints and pieces of worn, floral fabric. The effect is delicate and sober.

While there are lighter moments, Hands & Feet, which includes photos of chicken and ostrich feet, for instance - the overriding tone of this show borders on gloom. The quietly apocalyptic Preface for instance, makes use of engravings of comets, tornadoes, and other airborne portents of disaster and change. While Hersh makes no direct reference to it, one can't help but think what the bloody, horrifyingly abstract war with Iraq did to color these paintings, many of which were produced during that anxiety-ridden period.

Whatever may have impelled him to make the paintings, angst of this son seems to have been good medicine for Hersh. These fluid, deeply felt new works constitute a breakthrough.


	Howard Hersh Stunning Surfaces: A Gallery Round-up by Jocelyn Lieu The Santa Fe Reporter Volume 16, Issue 42 April 10–16, 1991 Appropriately, the theme of alchemy runs through Santa Fe artist Howard Hersh's show of new encaustic paintings at the LewAllen Gallery. It's appropriate because the thick wax Hersh brushes on over his collages drawings and scrawled, half-seen messages tinges them with sense of mystery and transformation. In the encaustic method, wax is melted, mixed with dry pigment, and layered over the surface. Here, Hersh's rich sculptural textures are tempered by the spare colos - blacks, whites, and grays accented with some reds, blues, and allows - that dominate this show. On the whole, the result is stunning. The surfaces Hersh builds on in these recent works range from collages that incorporate pages from a French text on mysticism to "found" artwork In Sure Nature. Hersh took a framed print of a typical flea market sublime landscape and painted over it, frame and all, in -die and red-tinted wax. A happy le composition, Sure Nature may be seen as a nod to another contemporary artist who paints over frames Howard Hodgkin. It's also a sly statement about what Hersh is not doing: Painting landscapes or anything at all Romantic. Hersh's country is interior and expressionist, though it draws liberally on the old myths, the natural world, and the human form. That we're in for something out of this world is clear from the start. Wheel of Fortune is typical of the paintings in this show in that it includes collaged engravings of the "roue de fortune," "images de metamorphoses alchemiques," and chatcoaled words swirled in an encaustic soup. A real beauty in this vein is Back (of Neck), which takes as its centerpiece two pages of text dealing with parapsychology and a photograph of, what else? the back of someone's neck. The quiet, dark sensuality of this piece is continued in Only Fair. Hersh's accomplished life drawings of nude women are interspersed with photographs of open hands, with the life and love lines scored in graphite. This mixed media work includes; a Santa Fe touch: The backward banner of the Santa Fe Reporter pasted in the lower right hand comer. Other pieces that make successful use of drawings include Smell the Roses, Stretched Drawing, and Drawing Pool. The last has cut-and-pasted nudes collaged with leaf prints and pieces of worn, floral fabric. The effect is delicate and sober. While there are lighter moments, Hands & Feet, which includes photos of chicken and ostrich feet, for instance - the overriding tone of this show borders on gloom. The quietly apocalyptic Preface for instance, makes use of engravings of comets, tornadoes, and other airborne portents of disaster and change. While Hersh makes no direct reference to it, one can't help but think what the bloody, horrifyingly abstract war with Iraq did to color these paintings, many of which were produced during that anxiety-ridden period. Whatever may have impelled him to make the paintings, angst of this son seems to have been good medicine for Hersh. These fluid, deeply felt new works constitute a breakthrough.