“Concept/Content” – a thinking person’s guide to art
“Dusk Sky – Glow,” by Ron Libbrecht
In the Paint
“Concept/Content” opens Saturday at APC Fine Arts Gallery in Torrance
As large a city as it is, Torrance isn’t known for its art galleries. If one exempts the Torrance Art Museum, which often caters to work from beyond the South Bay, what’s left? Precious little. But one showcase venue that exhibits local artists is the APC Fine Arts Gallery in Old Torrance. We could say that it flies under the radar because it’s been around for years, but for a space of modest size (it shares footage with a design and printing facility) its importance is not to be underestimated.
“Love,” by Ron Hust
This is particularly true with “Concept/Content,” which features six artists and three mediums, acrylic, oil, and watercolor. Ron Libbrecht, who oversees the gallery and the business that keeps it running, has plenty to say about what’s now on view, which will host its opening reception on Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m.
When paint takes the wheel
The front gallery contains acrylics by Ron Hust that look physical, the paint squirming its way all over the canvas. We are encouraged to compare this work with Ron Libbrecht’s use of acrylic because the two artists have collaborated on several pieces using the moniker Ron Squared. The idea is that by seeing their individual endeavors we may then decipher who brought what to the table of their joint effort.
“Richmond,” by Duncan Tooley
And yet, as we will see with the following artists, the focus isn’t on the subject so much as it’s on the image as created by the process. As Libbrecht phrases it, “content comes out of the process of the concept.” This will be explained further in the paragraphs below.
The second gallery contains watercolors by Duncan Tooley, but banish any thought of traditional sailboats or sunsets over the Manhattan Beach Pier.
Tooley often creates a normal-looking picture but then shatters it, sort of, with a fractal grid, so that we seem to have transparent slabs partially overlaying one another. This overlay creates a very shallow space, but then the landscape or other image behind it conveys a deeper space. What appears to have been the goal is not so much a recognizable subject but rather a painting that’s about painting.
By way of contrast, Libbrecht’s own watercolors, often painted outdoors, on site, puts the process of painting in the driver’s seat. It’s not the subject itself that calls the shots, but once again the concept determining the content.
“Head – 2,” by Danny McCaw
The third and last gallery contains several oil paintings by Dan McCaw and his two sons, John and Danny. The McCaws have a working studio on Sartori, also in downtown Torrance, but their high-end and skillful work is not often shown locally. That said, it’s a pleasure to have some of it on view.
“Conversation,” by Danny McCaw
Danny, the youngest son, has said of his work that it operates “in the areas between figuration and abstraction, history and imagination, past and present.” While there’s not enough of it here to bear this out, Libbrecht explains Danny’s approach, indeed Dan and John’s approach as well, as he understands it. And what they do, he says, is “use the paint to let the paint speak to the form, to speak to what the image is that they had in their mind, which is an idea.
“So the idea and the paint make the surface, and then the idea becomes the content.”
Of course, the physical image is the content as well, but at the core of this is the materiality and texture of the paint. This is important to remember when we look at the portraits and human figures, in which the paint both allows and conceals a realistic view of the subject.
As Libbrecht says, looking at Danny’s abstracted figures, “They’re not pristine figures, they’re figures that are painted, and so we can look at it in a couple of ways and ask ourselves, What are we looking at? Are we looking at the figure, and it’s not a pretty figure, so why am I looking at the figure? Well, you’re looking at the figure because you’re looking at paint. And that’s where the idea is.”
Excavation and intimacy
“In-Depth,” by John McCaw
John McCaw’s work dispenses with the figurative.
“Instead of using the figure as the text,” Libbrecht says, “John uses the idea of an excavation as some kind of site, so you’re digging up these treasures; but it’s the idea of how the paint does that process.” This is an “emotional excavation,” as Libbrecht puts it, because we’re sifting through the surface, through the paint, which is the result of the process that has created the piece. And as with most pure abstracts it’s easier to locate the subject of the work in the materials of which it is comprised. As John himself explains it, “My work contains elements of life, bits and pieces that reveal the anatomy of our existence.”
Dan McCaws’s pictures are in many ways similar to those of his younger son, although Libbrecht points out that “Danny’s work has more architecture in it.” The objects in Danny’s work also seem to have a harder or more clearly defined edge.
“Solitude,” by Dan McCaw
But Dan McCaw’s paintings give the impression of being composed with different shades of silence, and perhaps that’s not only attributable to the subdued palette but to the softness of form and the implied intimacy of the surroundings, even though we imagine these interiors to be spare, to be devoid of clutter and distraction. Again, it’s the paint, the cool tones, that induces our emotional response. In “Solitude,” a dark shadow appears to rise in the foreground, and it would not be hard to envision it overwhelming the figure who stands, solemnly, as if waiting for some kind of finality.
“Painting is an intimate conversation,” Dan McCaw says of his art. “The canvas is like the pages of a diary and at times the artist is willing to share this intimate conversation. The figure is the subject used to create and relate the intimate story through the process of painting.”
“So the paint has become the text,” Libbrecht reiterates, “using the image as a vehicle to come away with some kind of an idea of context.”
Ron Libbrecht. Photo
Textured effects
In this last gallery there is also one work by Libbrecht himself, “Dusk Sky – Glow,” which at first glance appears to depict the Palos Verdes coastline as seen from the shore or the bluffs in Redondo Beach. The shapes and the colors create form, and these forms create the content.
Also, part of what comprises form is the texture. While not as extreme as the heavily impastoed surfaces of Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff in the “London Calling” exhibition at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Libbrecht’s use of texture in “Dusk Sky – Glow” becomes more pronounced as we move away from the horizon and darkening sky and closer to the swells near the shoreline. The result for the viewer is an increased sense of depth. We get a visceral sense of this as we follow the contours of the hillside as well, as twilight sets in. Again, whatever we imagine we’re seeing is entirely due to to the paint itself and its application. This is what has brought the concept to life, which has become the created content.
It’s a deeper consideration of paint and process than what we’re used to, but one that enriches our appreciation and enjoyment of the work.
Concept/Content opens with a reception on Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m. at APC Fine Arts Gallery, 1621 Cabrillo Ave., between Torrance Blvd. and Carson St., in Old Torrance. Additional artists on view include Eddie Powell (Taogaea), Dinara Djabieva, Henry Fukuhara, Beth Shibata, and Milford Zornes. Through Sept. 16. Call (310) 328-0366 or go to apcfinearts.com. ER