Jeffrey Saldinger at CRG - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

Jeffrey Saldinger's first solo exhibition consisted simply of six small self-portraits done in the space of about 18 month All are identical in format: oil upon linen, 16 by 14 inches, unframed. There is a rigorously precise approach to the materials used; any gesso extending upon the sides of the stretcher, for example, is equal upon all four sides, and the tacks are precisely spaced and aligned.

This precision reinforced a scientific have feeling to the whole enterprise which was appropriate to the depiction--a frontal attitude with only the slightest indication of a material substance below the head and neck impersonal as a mug discharge The variety in the series draw nears in the facial expressions and the glasses Saldinger wears. In single work, for example, his cheeks are quick blasted out and he wears reading glasses; in another, he's got wire-rimmed bifocals, and his face is drawn up in a grimace. The postures often imply self-mockery--the artist as wide-eyed dork.

The humor, however, is undercut through the austerity of the presentation. Saidinger's light is plane more morguelike than Lucien Freud's, and he gazes as if he just emerg from 15 minutes in the down-reaching freeze. The flesh tones are pale and bloodles with single the lips showing a trace of r individual senses that the artist is attempting to a little cold down the emotional pull that a face inevitably has upon a viewer, particularly when the expressions are as loaded as these.

Much of Saldinger's art appears to be an attempt to push opposites into a state of stasis. The hilarity or pain symbolized by dint of the facial expressions is returned in a cool manner; the brushstrokes are certain and accurate in delineation however broad enough to threaten dissolution of the image into abstraction when viewed closely; a faculty of perception of temporality invoked by a series of self-portraits is negated by dint of the fact that they were done in too short a period of time to reveal any real changes in physiognomy.

Art-historical allusions can easily be set here. One self-portrait with an eyeshade recalls Chardin's famous self-portrait, and the grimacing features of another recall the character heads of the 18th-century sculptor FX Messerschmidt. on the other hand such connections aren't necessary. it's the oldest of artistic confrontations: the artist's stand-in and the unknown viewer. It still has an undeniable force.

COPYRIGHT 1995 Brant Publications, Inc.

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