seven beauties

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SEVEN BEAUTIES

Portraits of Seminal Painters and Text

by Bill Rangel


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Francis Bacon1909-1992 (Irish-born, British)

Bacon depicted biomorphic figures in sparse, brightly coloredinterior spaces. Sometimes there are lines on his canvases thatsuggest some sort of clear box that contains a figure. There's an

overall sense in Bacons work that the figures/people arespecimens in their own domestic laboratories, and they areemotionally dissected and/or physically inverted for the viewer toobserve and analyze. Bacon's work has been regarded as horrific,but whatever his intentions were, to me the results are kind of fun:weird figures screaming, funhouse faces, meat, umbrellas,baboons, etc., it's all kind of a carnival of sorts; the viewer goes

from one visual exhibit to the next, giddily anticipating the nextoddity. Bacon was not an official art historian, but he knew a lotabout art history and referenced great works in his own.


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Max Beckmann1884-1950 (German)

Beckmann's self-portraits are like a study of the moon in all hervarious stages of luminosity. I'm particularly drawn to the onesthat show him backlit with his facial features in silhouette,

because they suggest that the viewer is better lit, and he,Beckmann, is studying the viewer from the canvas. To acontemporary viewer, Beckmann's greatest works might look likemanic cartoons, but his deft use of primary colors and blackoutlines signaled his intention to leave behind something on thelevel of Gothic stained glass windows.


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Charles Demuth1883-1935 (American)

Although Demuth mostly did still-life watercolors of flowers andfruit, and oil paintings of factories, his overarching subject wastime. His fractured imagery and gradating colors resonate like the

sound of a clock ticking away, and the viewer senses a spanrather than a moment in time. He also did hilarious nightlifescenes, many of which showed playful gay encounters. And he iscredited as a godfather of pop art. But his greatest works are hisstill-life watercolors; there's something otherworldly about them.


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Gustav Klimt1862-1918 (Austrian)

Klimt liked sex, and I respond to artists who rely on sex as aportal to their vision. He's mostly known for his gold period withsensual images of lovemaking, works that are undeniably

impressive, especially in person, but I also really like hislandscapes. Clearly, Klimt saw everything as design; most of hisimages have a mosaic or textile quality to them. Althoughornamentation is the key to his overall style, he was deeplythoughtful about his adornments: patterns in nature, it seems, arethe overlay through which we can all access the subconsciousstates that are required for us to live.


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Oskar Kokoschka1886-1980 (Austrian)

Whatever subject Kokoschka chose to paint during his very longcareer, whether a landscape or a portrait, he somehow seemed tocapture it as if it were reflected on the surface of a shimmering

lake. There's an infectious, almost giddy nervousness to hisimagery that makes me think of mental institution art, and I meanthat in the best sense, because it's a gift for us to bear witness toraw vision.


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douard Manet1832-1883 (French)

Manet intentionally delivered to his viewers an artificial-lookingworld on canvas, images evocative of a still life from a play, or anarrative featuring characters who were theatrically lit. In his

greatest works, all imagery is in the foreground, and he tested hiscontemporaries by using the politics of sex as his main subject.And he clearly stated with his imagery, repeatedly, that he was afeminist.


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Pierre-Auguste Renoir1841-1919 (French)

Like R. Crumb, Renoir blatantly objectified women, but similarly ina way that was total worship. His renderings of the female formare the stuff of fertility goddesses, complete with absurd

proportions. One might see his beautiful paintings as completelysuperficial, and they are, in a celebratory sense, but they are alsohilariously twisted: In his greatest works, Renoir envisions a worldof giant, fleshy women who have oddly small heads. The toweringfemale bodies romp and lounge about, all the while visuallydominating any and all space. There's almost no air in any ofthese images, many of which are depicted outdoors! From

Renoir's point of view, it's as if he's a scientist who hasdiscovered a rare species of gargantuan female creatures, andhe's spying on them and taking field notes from a close distance.


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Seven BeautiesPortraits of Seminal Painters and Text by Bill Rangel

Part of the Echo Park Rising eventAugust 17-18, 2013Los Angeles Pizza Company

1498 West Sunset Blvd. Suite 2Los Angeles, CA 90026

The portraits are 40 x 48 each, acrylic and latex on cardboard.

About Bill RangelRangel utilizes a variety of painting methods for all of his multifacetedpaintings. His images--expressionist, classical, surreal, erotic--are charged

with the calm sense of a knowing eye. Each stroke of the brush is decisiveeven as it surrenders to the moment; for all the kinetic splendor of color andline, the viewer discovers simultaneity in every image.

www.billrangel.com

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