NEXT GENERATION
On View at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport, Maine
From March 1 to April 5, 2003

By Laurie Meunier Graves

In all of the arts, apprenticeship is odd and unreliable. Some artists charge through their apprenticeships and become masters at a relatively young age. This is almost always true of dancers, who need the physical stamina of youth for their art, but it can also be true of actors. However, other artists take longer, and it’s not unusual to consider a writer ‘young’ at forty. Those in the visual arts often fall somewhere in between.

At the Center for Contemporary Art in Rockport, Maine, there’s an exhibition, Next Generation, that shows artists in various stages of apprenticeship. According to the Center’s handout, “[the Center] welcomes 44 artists from nine Maine college and university campuses…Next Generation provides emerging artists an understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of any juried exhibition process.” It also offers viewers insight into artistic development and shows what an uneven process it is. In addition, it is a venue where the viewer can catch a glimpse of artists before they emerge from their apprenticeships.

As to be expected in a show that features student art, most of the pieces lack the completeness and vision that mature artists, whatever their age might be, bring to their work. There is a rawness, a lack of polish with many of the pieces in this exhibition, but there is also an undeniable energy as well as the promise that comes with new talent.

However, there are a few exceptions where it is obvious that the artists are nearly finished with their apprenticeships. The most stunning examples come from Brian McGregor and his two large drawings that are done in China ink. From a distance, they are magnificent, and they are just as good up close. Sous Bois shows a woodland path lined with huge, dark, leafless trees. It could be Mirkwood, from The Hobbit; it could be any enchanted forest. The drawing and its lines have vitality, delicacy, and authority. The same is true of the abstract Life’s Scroll, which is a series of lines and swirls with no discernable pattern. Somehow, it avoids being chaotic, and it reminds me of certain types of Islamic calligraphy.

On a more surreal and fantastical level, there is Spun Reality by Sasha Lehnen-Spencer. Ms. Lehnen-Spencer has created clay creatures that are a composite of different kinds of animals, placed them in wooden crates, and has even imagined stories and descriptions to go with them. One of the animals has a rooster’s head paired with the bottom of an octopus, and it is dressed in an orange-print shirt straight from the 1970s. In other crates stand other hybrids: an insect with bird legs, a camel (I think!) with a lobster’s tail, a walrus with cloven hooves, a deer’s head on top of the body of either a crab or a spider. This last creature wears a pink sweater with a little red pony patch. The stories, in a book by the crates, are clever but could use some editing. Ms. Lehnen-Spencer clearly has skill with clay and has a wonderful imagination, but her writing is not as accomplished. Never mind. This installment has so much spark that it is easy to forgive a few awkward sentences.

In The Trouble With Guns, Nathan Ahern has composed interconnected vignettes that look as though they could be part of a graphic novel. This small group of bright paintings involves dinosaurs, guns, and soldiers. In the last two, Down He Went and They Don’t Matter, the soldiers have killed the dinosaurs. Bloody and brutal, these pictures remind us of the human tendency toward destruction and of the corresponding disregard for life. It is art with a message, and it works.

It will be interesting to see where these three talented artists go with their careers. In a few years, they may have their own shows or be part of an exhibition with established artists. Of course, the same could be true with any of the artists featured in this exhibit; it just might take them longer. But then again, maybe it won’t. As I wrote in the beginning, apprenticeship is odd and unreliable. It does not follow a set pattern.

 

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