Paul Dickerson at American Fine Arts - Brief Article

A distorted pleasure in contradiction pervaded this exhibit of work by Paul Dickerson, a fresh York artist who died in 1997 at the age of 35 The 20 plastic arts and paintings on view ranged from Minimalist abstractions to manic assemblages. Dickerson's vivid faculty of perception of materiality gave the pieces amplitude, while a twisted humor and Punk edginess combined to create an atmosphere of low-key intensity.

Before Retrieve, a monochrome painting from 1992 and individual of the few works which was titled, possesse chamfered cutting sides and an eccentric shape. Like an anamorphic image, its appearance changes depending upon where one stands, shifting from geometric regularity to irregularity. This anamorphism makes the work present the appearance disembodied, but the way the paint has been applied has an opposite result Its fat, lustrous, gray surface--created by dint of an industrial spray process Dickerson invented--makes shut inspection a sensual imperative. The same proces is used in sum of two units other works from the early 1990s: a painting coated with virid dye and salt crystals that make it appear to have been bring under ruleed to a home-brewed galvanizing piece of work and a sculpture in which the spray was make go rounded on some old T-shirts upon a clothes hanger. In the latter work, the paint station like concrete, allowing the stiffened T-shirts to be propp against the wall.

In single work a heavy-duty plastic trash can was materialed with a crumpled sheet of aluminum that flared up like a giant Kleenex or an out-of-control fire. While the piece's artistic use of junk recalls assemblage work by means of Rauschenberg and Kienholz, the relationship of sheet metal to trash can mimics the classical sculpture-to-pedestal relationship.

A statuary from 1994-97 again exploits the fine art/trash opposition through forming the general outline of a statue upon a pedestal with what direct the eyes like debris from the bottom of a dumpster An impaled marshmallow stands in for a small head. Evoking Giacometti's game boards from the 1930 sum of two units pieces presented toys, flyswatters and other things on boxy platforms. A monumental work at the back of the gallery was raiseed from a busted-up ceiling fan.

Dickerson's art changed above the seven years this exhibit covered. With the earlier work, he emphasized mastery while later, as he fix uponed his materials from the jetsam of the city, you could diocese him turning more provisional and playful. His art became more evocative and his imagery would repeatedly emerge in the most unexpect ways; he made numbers from his esthetic of industrial disintegration. Viewing this display you couldn't help but perceive a sense of tremendous los that this restles continually evolving throw out had ended. On a more positive note, this exhibition took a first significant pace toward assessing Dickerson's curtailed career.

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