Carson
Isenor. While the name alone may simply conjure images of
"honourable mention" beauty queens and misinformed adolescent angst,
viewed in the pulsating neon of the Struts sandwich-board, the words carry a
certain grim reverence.
Isenor's work
is best described a juxtaposition between the minute and the large; the calm
gestures that inform the composition certainly reflect the stillness-- perhaps
even the banality-- of the natural world, without ever falling victim to the
twin-pratfalls (some would say, mammoths) of over-idealizing or teetering into
the realm of critical excess. Isenor-- and I will use this word with great
reverence-- composes form in a way that implicates the viewer as the
subject: the framing of objects (for example, trees) places one in the middle
of a scene, without the cinematic-scope that has become the (arguably passé) hallmark of the landscape canon. The
passive act of viewing shifts in to the active role of participating;
one is not simply viewing an Isenor work, one is participating in a sensual,
shared experience. As such, one encounters Isenor's work as one would encounter
the natural world: in too deep.
When
asked about the meaning of the exhibition's vague title, Isenor was hesitant;
he shuffled his feet, he grinned, he wiped sweat from his brow: this was man naked
in his modesty. Isenor neglected to divulge his inspiration, though one must
speculate that its inspiration derives from the lines of a 1754 poem by
notorious bigot and French man-of-letters Christo Bonsoir:
I sit with my jaw slack,
as the clouds roll,
from the forest into His arms;
I am reborn, in too deep.
(Bonsoir, 153) [trans. Albert Piscoli]
This is not
the first time Isenor has alluded the Bonsoir text-- in his 2009 auto-biography
Paint By Numbers, Isenor notes:
After my brother Jimmy died, I really felt like
I was in over my head, like I was in too
deep. [Isenor, 144]
Isenor--
certainly not a vocal man in regards to his works-- has never specifically
cited the Bonsoir poem in any of his brief public statements (nor in the
aforementioned biography), though in a speech given in a third year printmaking
critique, Isenor suggested a particular reverence for Rococo artist Jacques
Dupont, a pupil of Jean-Honoré Fragonard, perhaps most famous for 1777 work Femme
Nue (or, Naked Woman); Dupont was often suspected of having an
affair with Bonsoir, and Bonsoir is in fact depicted in a highly-erotic fashion
in Dupont's 1778 Homme Nu (or, Naked Man).
Detractors
of Isenor's work frequently cite his overly-academic approach to image-making
as "inauthentic" and detrimental to the form of the work itself.
Historian and art-critic P.P. Ballard once published an inflammatory
retaliation to Isenor's life-size canoe woodblock print in A.R.T. Quarterly,
a now-defunct art-journal:
[...] this is probably the most phallic work I
have ever had the displeasure of viewing.
Isenor's insistence on forcing the viewer to act as subject is
irrelevant, clichéd, and by any standard,
quite pathetic. I would certainly love to have a copy of his canoe print, so that I could use it as firewood. (Ballard,
12)
Likewise,
Isenor's colleague Graham Ereaux sings a similar tune in his most recent
publication, Thoughts On Art:
Most of Isenor's work is really [terrible]; his
use of colour is [shitty] and I really [hate]
this work... I really think that guy should [leave town]. (Ereaux, 20-21)
Certainly,
much of this critique will ring true to those familiar with Isenor's work: the
ironic juxtaposition of large, frameless landscapes placed conspicuously beside
one another certainly highlights the white-cube as an inappropriate
venue for discussing a painting, a process that is frequently deemed to be a
cathartic, emotional release for its producers. And perhaps, as a purely
academic exercise, some of Isenor's work falls flat: dissections of the
gallery-as-institution have certainly been popular for quite some time, and
inevitably a question of relevance lingers in the air. But for this
talented up-and-comer, it would seem that institutional-critique might be the
least of his concerns: pseudo-academic-circle-jerks aside, Isenor's work really
does place the viewer in the middle of the scene, regardless of its
intellectual implications. As such, the work is entirely successful on two
levels: as a profound technical exercise (with traditional Isenor hallmarks,
including a suitably warm, earthy palate) and as a invitation into a verdant
and authentic natural world. Though it is some of the most visually striking
work of this generation, as an institutional-critique, it falls somewhat flat.
In
the realm of critical and theoretical discussion, awesomeness generally takes a
back seat to formal academic waxing on structure, syntax and style ("The
Deadly Three"); if there was ever an occasion to celebrate the dank
in contemporary painting, it is now. Isenor's paintings manage to effectively
communicate the placidity of rural life, without fetishizing or demeaning the
culture; they really make me want to walk in the woods and huff propane (in the
best way possible).
I would hope
to avoid the reduction of Isenor's work into an act of sensationalistic
appraisal-- touting the artist as the "next big thing" in Canadian
art seems a tad extravagant-- but if there is any individual with the sheer
audacity to change how a stilted and self-conscious public-at-large responds to
great works, it is this enigmatic, modest, wide-eyed cherub of a man.
- Richard L. Maloney
Carson Isenor's 'In too deep' was on display from September 12-25, 2012, at START Gallery - located at 7 Lorne Street in Sackville, NB.
