Nancy Boy continues...
Above the buffet, Andrew J. Phares presents five "Bullet Sketches" - delicate pencil drawings of girls and young women, sewn around the sides with zigzag stitch onto heavy paper, and accented with a single, gold-colored bullet, whip-stitched into place. His girls appear, sketchy, brittle, vulnerable. Phares's "My Kitchen Has Every Convenience" displays a neatly organized utensil rack/towel bar which also incorporates bullets, pistols, and an adjacent display of Kevlar-lined "Bullet Proof Oven Mitts." (An unstated subtext, particularly to some of the more ominous work on view, might well be "a boy's best friend is his mother," complete with subliminal references to Norman Bates and his fruit cellar.) Whipped up in someone's dysfunctional kitchen, book artist Shawn Smith's "Fallen Wedding Cake" sprawls on a low pedestal, as if it has come crashing to the ground. An unappetizing shade of beige, this confection is filled with shredded romance novels, the layers strung together, like a do-it-yourself construction project, with long metal springs. Standing for, one assumes, all the promises of love and romance which go wrong, this piece is ultimately incredibly sad. Smith's "George Orwell Purse" and "Richard Feynman Clutch," made from book pages and metal, also have a moody, introspective air.
David Hevel presents us with a diverse assortment of sculpture. He appropriates the favorite toys of macho boys and encrusts them with glittering rhinestones in "Rhinestone Baseball" and "Rhinestone Football" also giving us "Jock," an athletic supporter cup studded with small textured light bulbs. In the rear corner we find his massive, Baroque/tropical frenzy of a sculpture, "From the Beautiful Armageddon Series: Paris Hilton Says, 'That's Hot'." An honest appraisal of the predominant aesthetic at work here would have to be plain old "bad taste," or, more generously, "kitsch." Eventually the suffocating conglomeration of fish, plastic stargazer lilies, seedpods, plastic crystal ropes, cream-colored artificial monkeys dripping metallic glaze, and, oh, yeah, piles of polyurethane poo on the floor, holds a certain desperate charm. One can't deny its presence, in any event. Smaller, more restrained arrangements by the artist sit on pedestals - "Cranberry Splash" involving warm-hued flora, red tassels, plastic crayfish, and something which appears to be a split pomegranate, oozing mucus.
Hevel's work, which seems somehow distanced from the rest, smacks of a self-congratulatory air - his tongue positioned firmly in cheek. It's kind of like low budget Jeff Koons in drag, celebrating kitsch, bad taste, and banality while lampooning the pervading aura of overactive testosterone rampant in the country today.
One might overlook the two pieces by Bren Ahearn, discreetly tucked into Lucite cases, and that would be a pity. His "All American Cock Ring" and "Spaghetti Strap #2" are clear stand-outs, the woven ring bearing the inscription "Does size really matter?" is snapped around an erect wooden sewing bobbin, while the jockstrap, a perverse construction of woven pasta, sports a label, "Noodle & Co."
While initial perceptions, by the viewing public, might find the work as very "gay" this is actually untrue -- many of these artists are, in fact, straight. Just, perhaps, a little different from the norm; as Hevel, who is a married high-school teacher, states in his "10 informative confessions," "My favorite name I have been called is Candy Ass. What exactly is a Candy Ass anyway?" While sexual orientation may, or may not, play a role in the domestic materials and techniques which have attracted these artists, the issue will certainly crop up with most viewers as they tour the exhibition. In the large gallery, the annual Art of Living Black exhibition explores the experience of local artists of color. As our society becomes, as one would hope, more tolerant of diversity, both in terms of one's race as well as gender or sexual orientation, the assumptions which one makes about an artist and their work based on stereotypes will, perhaps, eventually become a thing of the past.
Nancy Boy closed in March at Richmond Art Center.
Barbara Morris is a contributing editor to Artweek.
