Inside or Out: Spencer Van der Zee at Malton Gallery

As part of their new series highlighting emerging local artists, this month the Malton Gallery is featuring work by musician Spencer Van der Zee. A collection of pen and ink drawings, Van der Zee has assembled an interesting exhibition that affirms its status as, and admiration for, outsider art.

While possessing no formal education in the medium, stylistically, Van der Zee has absorbed all of the conventions associated with the look of the outsider. The drawings on display include juxtaposed images, scrawling lines, doodles, snippets of text, blobs of color, ethereal narratives, and highly rendered scenes that jostle for attention on the surfaces of the support.

In this current show Van der Zee’s strongest works assimilate not only the aesthetic sensibilities of outsider art, but of quality art making in general. In The Other World is Mine (2009/10), the largest and best of the works on view, Van der Zee creates a visual environment rich with contrasts. The aforementioned tightly rendered pen and ink scenes (often astoundingly minute and detailed) are relieved by airy, open expanses of surface and color. Van der Zee’s sense of composition, whether intuitive or not, is self-possessed and thoughtfully applied. Color is used to describe both form and atmosphere and the asymmetrical composition employed is surprisingly sophisticated. Much of the same can be said about Lumberjacks Curse (2009/10), a smaller, more compact arrangement that announces a native talent for the standards of two dimensional art.

As mature as several of Van der Zee’s works are, there are signs scattered throughout the show that as a visual artist he is still finding his footing. Salty Green (2009/10) another of his larger works, addresses its surface awkwardly, with all of its visual weight pressed into the lower left hand corner. As the integrity of picture plane breaks down, the eye has a tendency to slip off the edge of the piece. Van der Zee’s taught drawings, which serve his best pieces so well, can also be pushed too far, and result in images that appear overworked and over emphasized.

Though the term has always been problematic, “outsider art” has of late evolved into a catch phrase that encompasses folk, naive, intuitive, and brut forms of craft that come complete with their own aesthetic values and clever marketing strategies. In an era hyper-saturated with the mass reproduction of pictures, anyone possessed with the sense of sight constantly digests a steady stream of composed images; as a result few can stake a legitimate claim to the moniker of “outsider”. So while Spencer Van der Zee may lack the formal training of an academic institution, he is far from unschooled in the fundamentals of visual design. Inside or out, Van der Zee’s work has a peculiar quality that points to a promising future as one of this city’s newest young visual artists.

-Alan D Pocaro

Spencer Van der Zee’s New Work on view August 15th –September 15th at the Malton Gallery.
3804 Edwards Road, Cincinnati, OH 45209-1917. (513) 321-8614 www.maltonartgallery.com

Pictured Above: The Other World is Mine (detail), Micron, Ink, Spray Paint, Collage, and Marker on Paper. Courtesy of the Artist
Pictured Below: Lumberjacks’ Curse, Micron, Ink, Spray Paint, Collage, and Marker on Paper. Courtesy of the Artist

Petit Plaisir: Donna Talerico at Greenwich House Gallery

Former fashion illustrator turned fine artist Donna Talerico’s new paintings at the Greenwich House Gallery unabashedly trumpet their influences. Inspired by post impressionist attitudes, Talerico’s work is direct; filled with light, color, and a painterly approach to the canvas. Her choice of subject matter: landscapes, street scenes, solitary figures, and cafés filled with anonymous patrons hearken back to the days when France was the epicenter of innovative western art.

Contemporary artists working within the context of past idioms is nothing new. Often unfairly dismissed as derivative or retrograde, works like these are frequently overlooked, but interestingly, not all is as it seems with Donna Talerico’s painting. Her use of broad, muscular brushstrokes actually have considerably more in common with mid century American abstraction than that of their late 19th and early 20th century French counterparts. And her surfaces, which upon first glance appear to be treated with a rich impasto, are, under close scrutiny, revealed to be quite flat, a sort of inverse Van Gogh that allows the viewer to detect the texture of the underlying canvas. Finally, Talerico executes her work in acrylic and yet somehow manages to achieve the radiant luster associated with oils.


In this current exhibition, Talerico has a tendency to pack her pictures in tight. By pushing the maximum amount of color and brush stroke the support can handle, some of the paintings feel a little too dense. And while many of her street scenes suffer from a sense of being overloaded, Talerico is adept at using the visual language of impressionism to create works that are truly arresting. In Devant Le Miroir, Talerico does everything right. By restricting her palette to fewer hues and giving us a strong central figure, Talerico creates a surface that allows color to breathe; opening the space and allowing the viewer in. Devant Le Miroir is also less vigorously stroked, striking a more delicate (and decidedly better) balance between intensity and placidity than several of her other pieces. Many of her finest works in the show also emphasize simplified or restricted approaches to color. Both Café le Arts and Apt. A, Provence are able to deftly break out of the background noise created by some of the streetscapes by capitalizing on color palettes that are in essence simple complementary relationships.

Donna Talerico clearly knows how to handle paint and make it move. Many of the most refined works in the show indicate that far from imitation, Talerico is arriving at style that is both personal and mature. While works such as these may no longer possess the shock of the new to 21st century eyes, enthusiasts of early modernism will find more than their share of small pleasures in her work.

-Alan D. Pocaro

Fresh From France: Recent Paintings by Donna Talerico on view at Greenwich House Gallery through August 6th. 2124 Madison Rd. Cincinnati, Ohio 45208. (513)-871-8787. www.greenwichhousegallery.com

Pictured Above: L'horloge au Café, Acrylic on Canvas. 24" x 30". Courtesy of Greenwich House Gallery and the Artist
Pictured Below: Devant Le Miroir, Acrylic on Canvas. 30”X36”. Courtesy of Greenwich House Gallery and the Artist.