Traditions/Innovations: Four Northern California Artists

Crocker Art Museum

Sacramento, California

(916) 264-5423.

Traditions/Innovations: Traditions/Innovations: Four Northern California Artists, on exhibit June 6 through July 27, 1997 at the Herold Gallery. American art today is often appreciated for its novelty-in subject matter, technique, or style. Alongside this search for innovation, a number of artists seek expressive means informed by tradition. Such references characterize the work of a number of engaging artists working in Northern California today. Troy Dalton, Stephen J. Kaltenbach, Hung Liu, and Brian Tripp create compelling contemporary paintings and sculptures that reference traditional art and literature. They draw upon sources as varied as Biblical texts, classical antique sculpture, native Karok regalia from Northern California, and historic photographs made in China.

TROY DALTON

Troy Dalton incorporates mythology and religion, art masterpieces (both

historical and modern), and natural science texts, in his complex

paintings. Among Dalton's challenges in Sacrificial Bacchanal #1, was to

describe his own hands and face in close proximity to each other. Here,

with his fingers pulling down on his cheeks, the artist literally forces

himself to see. The goat's head he balances in a brass pan is from a

National Geographic magazine, and the two figures in the background were

inspired by reproductions of Italian Baroque drawings. These are

interpreted as paintings, with Dalton appreciating reproductions because

they lack the presence of originals, and thus lend themselves to being

developed anew. The shallow stage-like box, which exposes and confines

the artist, is surrounded by brilliant brushstrokes. These acknowledge

Dalton's admiration for abstract painting and make the figurative

elements appear more strikingly realistic by contrast.

(Above, Touch, 1996, acrylic on canvas)

Dalton has explored a number of styles and themes in his work. He

turned to figurative, allegorical subjects in the 1980s, and continued

working with them after enrolling in graduate school at the University

of California at Davis.

Like many of his paintings, Desperately Seeking

Expression in the Art Official was revised over many years. It was first

a landscape viewed through a wall. He set the painting aside after it

was damaged, and later added the mural of the pieta (taken from

Bouguereau). Dalton then painted the female figures at the left from

models. As he worked on the canvas, he covered the surface with black

gesso, which he proceeded to belt sand and scrape until the images

reappeared. He often uses this technique, which offers an additional way

of "making marks"-one that is subtractive rather than additive. When

Dalton added the foreground figure, he also painted in the rubber cow,

which alludes to the Montana cattle ranch on which he was raised. Only

later did he realize the reference to a "sacred cow" that this unlikely

object offers.

(Above, The Birth of Cain, 1993, acrylic on canvas)

The Birth of Cain is one of a series of paintings and drawings (Dalton

also makes large drawings, although not as studies and frequently

following the paintings to which they relate) about Adam's first wife,

Lilith. The painting was composed in part by working from the model and

using images from contemporary mass culture (Lilith's pose is adopted

from a perfume advertisement in a magazine). Lilith is prominently

tattooed, a treatment that allows Dalton to introduce additional

information and challenges him to invent decoration on a

three-dimensional surface. Dalton appreciates tattoos as being

"incredibly beautiful," yet having a social stigma. He features the

egret on Lilith because it is noted for its voraciousness, and thus

serves "as a foil to the serpent" lurking below. Such symbols abound in

The Birth of Cain, which also displays the artist's consummate

draughtsmanship and sheer pleasure in painting.

STEPHEN J. KALTENBACH

Stephen J. Kaltenbach explores many media, including ceramics,

conceptual art, and painting. Recently, however, he has devoted

considerable attention to sculpture to address conceptual issues that

interest him.

(Above, Arch of Triumph, 1988, clay and plaster)

Kaltenbach's work is characterized by the ambitious ideas that underlie

his pieces, many of which are studies or maquettes for monumental

projects. For instance, Kaltenbach envisions executing a twelve-foot

high version of Arch of Triumph where viewers could walk underneath the

extended arm. Although his forms resemble classical antique sculptures,

Kaltenbach sculpts from models (using opportunities provided by the life

sculpture class he teaches at California State University, Sacramento).

Here he also used images from muscle magazines for details. In Arch of

Triumph Kaltenbach seeks to express the "triumph of peacemakers over

warmongers... a sword attached to a bodiless arm is not very dangerous."

This piece also is inspired by the Biblical passage "They will beat

their swords into plowshares"; the sword piercing into the ground is

"plowlike."

Kaltenbach explores this allusion in a very different format in Star

Plow (1996). Painted on velvet, Star Plow is a conceptual proposal for a

nuclear poem, to be created by "retargeting the world's arsenal of ICBMs

to spell the word 'JOY' in outer space." It represents the artist's

vision that the military establishment might redeploy weapons as

fireworks. The word "JOY" creates the shape of a plowshare, which

reinforces this alternative use of armaments.

(Above, Proposal for a Dam, 1995, melamine plaster)

Kaltenbach uses images of the Greek goddess Venus as metaphors for

society's views of women. Derelict, for instance, transforms a Venus

head into the hull of ship that has been left in a sandbar to rust, much

as elderly relatives, who are predominantly female, are placed in

convalescent centers and forgotten. Kaltenbach describes Man Crying Over

Artifact, with a male figure seated, despairing, on a Venus head as a

metaphorical image for personal challenges relating to women.

Kaltenbach's references are more universal in Study for a Dam, which

combines miniature Greek kore figures, Japanese masks, and Indian temple

statuary with the heads of Robert Arneson and Jackson Pollock. In

compressing fragments of sculptures associated with many countries and

eras in a compact space, Kaltenbach seeks a "memorial to all

civilizations." He perceives figure sculptures as symbolic of their

cultures, with fragments indicating both their achievements and demise.

The dam form on which they appear offers an immense and unexpected

surface for embellishment. It likewise embodies the potential for both

positive and negative change, much as losses are incurred and gains made

in the successive rise and fall of civilizations.

HUNG LIU

Hung Liu uses historical photographs for paintings that examine issues

related to the history of China-and how others have perceived it. Liu is

uniquely qualified to examine such themes. She was born in Manchuria and

immigrated to the United States thirteen years ago. Her father was

jailed as a political dissident shortly after her birth, and Liu was

raised by her mother in Beijing. With the onset of the Cultural

Revolution in 1966, she was sent to the provinces to labor in the fields

for four years. Under these trying circumstances, she learned

photography and secretly made small paintings. Upon returning to

Beijing, she enrolled at the Central Academy of Fine Art. Its social

realist curriculum placed emphasis on copying models, and because Liu

was in the mural painting program, she was able to visit the caves at

Dunhuang in 1979-80, where she was impressed by the remarkable beauty of

the centuries-old "ghost images."

Liu made slides of her work, and asked a friend who was studying at the

University of California at San Diego to share them with the art

department. She was accepted into the graduate program, where the

avant-garde art faculty included Allen Kaprow and David and Eleanor

Antin.

(above, Bitter Liver, 1997, oil on canvas, 90 x 60 inches,

courtesy of Rena Bransten Gallery, photo: John Wilson White)

Liu is interested in how women and children are perceived. She explores

these themes through vintage photographs collected on return visits to

China and elsewhere. Among the historic photographs Liu uses are early

20th-century portraits of prostitutes. In recent paintings, Liu selected

bust-length portraits from albums that were prepared in China for

potential clients during the 1920s as her sources. Such books represent

a collision of cultures, as models were often posed with cars or views

of Niagara Falls. In addition, most of the photographs, such as the one

on which Bitter Liver is based, show the young girls as very traditional

types.

Subjects are consciously posed to appear demure, even

self-conscious, while simultaneously conveying their availability to the

viewer. Liu adopts the oval format of her photographic source, which

asserts its historic character, and adds a male figure and a Song

Dynasty acupuncture diagram at the right. The diagram chosen is one for

the liver, a source for Liu's title and also a reference for man's

ailments.

Liu amplifies sensual details-such as the pearl necklace and fan-and

varies the treatment of her paint to create an exciting surface. Areas

of impasto contrast with very dilute pigment that trickles down the

canvas. Liu sees the streaks as analogous to how photographs (and

memories) fade, noting that the Chinese word for "to develop"

photographs is the same as that for "to wash."

Liu views the advent of photography as a turning point in human

representation, and has a continuing interest in how photographers

"control" their subjects, especially when photographers portray cultures

other than their own. Liu addresses this confrontation in several

canvases inspired by photographs taken by Joseph Rocks, which are

published in Lamas, Princes and Brigands. Among them is a photograph of

a group of Tibetan hunters, who exhibit their trophy (a vulture) for the

camera. Their poses and apparel, and even the surrounding landscape,

could easily be associated with the American West, forcing viewers to

consider how culture affects our perceptions. The unequal match of men

and prey also touches on contemporary issues about the relationship of

human beings and nature.

BRIAN TRIPP

The triangles, striations, and jagged lines that dominate Brian Tripp's

large-scale wall pieces repeat motifs from both the basketry and painted

arrows of the Karok people of northwestern California. An honored Karok

singer, dancer, and traditionalist, Tripp is instrumental to the

continued vitality of his people's traditions, in addition to being a

highly regarded contemporary visual artist.

(Above, He Shoulders the Load, 1996, mixed media, 36 x 48 x 12 inches)

Tripp's work reflects his energy and openness to stimuli from many

sources. These range from avant-garde art to forms that have been handed

down for many generations in Karok regalia. He is similarly democratic

in his choice of media, using materials as varied as china marker,

paint, aluminum foil, street signs, glass, and wood. The Best Things in

Life Aren't Free gives evidence of the artist's restlessness and the

tumult in his culture. Saliently, he tranposes the balanced shapes from

Karok regalia into jarring lines that communicate tension and upheaval.

This disorder is reinforced by glistening sticks, covered with foil,

shaped into dollar signs.

(Above, Doing What Comes Naturally, mixed media)

Tripp breaks rules: adding found objects, such as traffic signs, to the

surfaces his paintings; taking apart and reassembling his images; and

appending irregular attachments that energize his compositions.

In Aftershock, Tripp suspends six large figures composed of pieces of found

wood on a surface of boldly painted rectangles and triangles. The

simplified figures, which take advantage of natural patterns of growth

and wear on the wood, are haunting; some have sharply broken sticks for

arms, others are weighted down by rocks around their neck or torso.

Aftershock conveys a sense of immediacy in its execution, with roughly

painted lines, streaking paint, and raw edges. And its title

communicates the artist's socio-political intentions, making reference

to an earthquake, and to how the Native Californian world was "shaken to

the core" when lands were taken and cultures subjugated by white

intruders. Tripp identifies the central figure, with his hands tied

behind his back, as signifying the impact of this invasion, while the

personages that surround him stand upright and serve as protectors.

Tripp also creates powerful installations and three-dimensional

sculptures, such as He Shoulders the Load. Here the suspended horizontal

bar serves as a yoke; its attachments, planks of wood, sticks, and

stones-all painted an identical saturated red-represent all the various

responsibilities that the figure must assume. Tripp says these include

not only the commitments to family and a livelihood, but also the

challenge of maintaining a threatened culture.

Text and photos courtesy of Crocker Art Museum

Search for more articles and essays on American art in Resource Library. See America's Distinguished Artists for biographical information on historic artists.

This page was originally published in 1997 in Resource Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for more information.