This confluence of color and graphic iconography is emblematic of the artist’s concerns throughout this entire body of work. In 27 Hands (1990), a group of open palms, each depicting a single symbol or a motif, including a peace sign, skull and bones, swastika, Turkish crescent and star, dollar sign, Star of David, and male and female gender signs, is set against an atmospheric background of blood reds and rich dark browns.
… I want it to be open enough so that people can interpret and relate the images to their own experiences.” “I think it is important for the viewer to bring some of his or her own associations to the work. And as personal as much of the imagery is, he intended the works to be broadly understood. Blending narrative and metaphor, Lovell’s work creates meanings that are, as in everything he has done since then, shaded with ambiguity that invites multiple interpretations. Much of the work is personal, even autobiographical, grounded in the artist’s past. And a head rests on its side atop a mound of flowers, in a reference to both a Mexican burial tradition and a deeply felt family tragedy. Empty clothes express the presence of absence – spiritual, emotional, or physical – of friends and family members. Hands contain faces and figures, some mysterious, others easily identifiable. Lovell speaks allegorically through his visual symbols, examining issues of identity, gender, love, death, and loss. His subjects are often sourced from vintage photographs from family albums as well as anonymous photos. He chose to work in deep, vibrant monochrome that gives the works a dramatic gestural presence, combined with finely executed charcoal drawings that are the forebears of the artist’s ongoing practice. This is the first time in several decades that such an extensive collection from the artist’s earliest body of work is on view.ĭuring this early period Lovell worked on large sheets of paper that he layered with oil stick and charcoal. Works in a shadowy periphery between substance and ephemera, two and three dimensions, spiritual and material culture, self and other, populating this ambiguous space with people, places, and objects from the past.ĭC Moore Gallery is pleased to present the exhibition, Whitfield Lovell: What’s Past is Prologue, comprised of over thirty large- and medium-scale works on paper created between 19.
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