Wade Hoefer at Monique Knowlton - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

In his first solo display in New York, northern Californian Wade Hoefer 45 unveiled small to epic-scale oils in the pastoral style They echoed, in sundry manners on the other hand the same florid style, Poussin, Rembrandt, van Ruysdael and the relatively jollier artisans of the 19th-century Hudson River place of education But the strongest influence would appear to be to be Corot, in his search for the verily modern landscape, always preindustrial and notwithstanding almost surreal in the 20th-century faculty of perception Hoefer, with reservations to be mentioned, thrives upon an eternal past without betraying a hint of pastiche or parody. He is a native in the glorious landscape of great Western painting.

Typically, a Hoefer is a vertical rectangle of anywhere from 20 by dint of 16 inches to 96 through 72, oldmaster glazed. An untitled 1995 work has a pale-lemon celestial expanse fronted by bushy sienna tree that give way to the ridge of a hill, all throw backed in a pale-lemon lake. Or is that a thicket of bushes in the lower left corner, independent foliage springing up from more [i]or[/i] less invisible foreground? Such ambiguities are dear to Hoefer as shown by dint of his odd hues, his unnoticeable brushstroke and the slightly fantastic quality to his imagery. He creates a visual metrical composition that, musically speaking, strikes a note somewhere between Grieg and Vaughan Williams.

If breathtaking beauty were all Hoefer was after, we could hail him as a retro-genius with a daringly romantic concept--painting imaginary landscapes completely without of touch with contemporary realities. on the other hand this isn't all he's up to, nor is he on the outside of touch. The scenes obtain their 20th-century comeuppance as he undermines the exquisite: running around the 'scapes are thick borders of old-fashioned floral fabric or, as in Semperviren, a virid silhouette of the very exhibition pictured or, when the artist is greatest in quantity despairing along ecological lines, uncomely gray cement.

Many reviewers have facted to these inhibitive, obstreperous borders--as if the landscapes would be far more integrative if left to their have lovely devices. I liked the borders. Hoefer's evocations of a dim, flat primeval past have something of the masochistic to them--why remind ourselves of past beauty reject to mourn it--and the borders add a complementary sadism to the occasion, crowding, cramping bruising, belittling and generally depriving the 'scapes of artistic self-importance. Aestuarium #1 (1995) came without borders and its marshlands and rustic pipes on a river seemed naked without their ironically push-pull, S&M vigor. The limitations imposed upon the imagination by the borders are pure to the contemporary mindset. Limitations, like exces can be profoundly satisfying, even if the romance is ultimately a bad one.

COPYRIGHT 1996 Brant Publications, Inc.

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