You Can't Get Pregnant Your First Time

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.