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Irving
Kriesberg (1919 – 2009) was a visionary for modern painting
and one of the prototypical American Figurative Expressionists.
He was a “rare bird,” whose painting style developed
not solely from outside sources, but from within as images “well
up behind his eyes”. His innovations in painting that
include the use of sequential imagery, minimalism, as well as his
unique color palette and the way he created his compositions,
made him a bridge figure between the Abstract Expressionists and
the Conceptual post-modernist painters. Kriesberg’s worldly
travels and dreams become the motifs for his Figurative
Expressionist works. There is no allegorical intent in Kriesberg’s
process. It is the result of the artist’s subconscious mind
at work that through the paint, images start to reveal their
probable intent. This exhibition will examine the paintings of
Irving Kriesberg created over the course of six decades and look
at his progression from a seminal Figurative Expressionist into
one of the most unique and influential painters of the 20th
century.
Scenes
of yearning angels, curious animals, and other creatures remain
in most of his works. His figures have the ability to project
their own identities rather than depicting blatant iconography
and invite the viewer to partake in a brave new world that is a
dramatic labyrinth of colorful characters. Kriesberg’s
painted environments touch the observer deep into the
subconscious mind, evoking a sense of the primeval, and tapping
the collective sense of an archetypal visual language.
Undeniably, there is an implied spirituality in the figuration,
in animals, humans and humanoids alike.
Kriesberg
called many of his creatures “sheep.” In addition to
sheep there is the white owl, the blue monkey, the Satan figure
and, for a period in the sixties, frogs. Drawing animals
seemingly came naturally to Kriesberg who was raised on drawing
museum taxidermy at Chicago’s Field and the comic strip
Krazy Kat by George Herriman (1880-1944). Unlike many of his
contemporaries who painted the figure as human representation,
Kriesberg’s animals have been the medium for the greater
part of his work and their relationship to humans or humanoids is
mysterious. These are not animals in a literal biographical
sense, nor do they blatantly represent or reflect other species.
In fact, the meaning depends on the attitude of the painter
rather than the specific species.
While
certain creatures reoccur in different paintings, they often
exhibit different emotions or roles. Sometimes they are figures
of worship, friends or guardians, at other times they are
predatory or burlesque. As is the case in Dogfield I (1988),
figures seem to have multiple roles within the same painting.
They can be menacing but also benign, like the white owl that
hovers over the migrating figurations in the painting. The owl
initially appears to be guarding them from evil, but the look on
its face also suggests it might be guiding them towards
malevolence. In the painting Impudence (1984), the white
owl again exhibits conflicting personalities. It is often
presented as an angel, but many times the owl engages in
conspiratory actions with a red devilish figure. |
