What: Dog and Cat Show When: Thru Jan. 2 Where: Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church Gallery, 2931 Kingston Pike (523-4176)

Four artists present works featuring cats and dogs

by Heather Joyner Spica

I gave birth to a baby boy in May, but I still take many pictures of my cat Bettie. I photograph her often—not because I love animals in general or because of the affection I feel toward Bettie or because she’s gorgeous (despite outweighing the baby and lumbering around the house like a polar bear). Instead, it’s mostly because I have ample opportunity to capture her in visually interesting situations.

True, Bettie has been my cat for longer than 11 years and pictures of her are personally meaningful. But first and foremost, I respond to what I’m seeing through my camera...to composition within the frame, texture and color, gesture, etc. Which brings me to the present show at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church.

Whether or not the animals seen in this month’s exhibition are pets of the included artists is not really the point. What ultimately counts is what they reflect about the people who created them. Exhibitors Marcia Goldenstein, Tom Riesing, and Clark Stewart are UT faculty and established artists. Emily Taylor, a somewhat recent MFA recipient, is a newer talent who enjoys ongoing professorial encouragement. However, one can easily forget hierarchical designations when regarding the 40-plus drawings and paintings in the “Dog and Cat Show;” all of the art displayed is compelling in one way or another and is, simply put, a joy to look at. It’s also quite varied.

Goldenstein and Riesing present relatively traditional studies or sketches not necessarily connected to their primary efforts, and Stewart and Taylor show works with distinctive approaches found in art they’ve made from other subject matter. Those differences reveal very individual impulses. For instance, Goldenstein has called her views of different cats “a pleasant diversion from my oil paintings and a chance to turn my attention to the feline members of our household,” whereas Stewart says, “I just wanted to draw. To just make the most beautiful drawings that I could without the concerns of philosophical content or message.” Either way, we end up with images that are far more than technically accomplished. They resonate with the artists’ appreciation for animal forms and the vitality those forms bring to art.

Drawn on putty or dark gray-toned paper, Goldenstein’s cat studies employ “background” color and colored pencil to soften their formality. Her graceful lines produce figures that seem suspended in space yet defining of space. On the one hand, the “floating” feline images allude to that animal’s independence and quietude. But the three-dimensional reality the rendered cats’ bodies suggest allows us to see them as forms within an imaginary environment. On the other hand, Goldenstein’s “Pete Cat” has charcoal lines representing some sort of furniture or interior that, by virtue of contrast, points to the utterly alive mass of fur that is Pete. Animals in a diptych titled “Garden Catalog Pets” are reminiscent of Egyptian icons and therefore don’t really fit the show.

Riesing’s cats are a bit more stylized (and are at times the same cats, as he’s married to Goldenstein). Dominating 10 small cards he made for his wife, they evoke landscapes, resembling hillocks, knolls, and the like. His image titled “Brothers” is more like Goldenstein’s studies but contains close to actual-size animals which, like Stewart’s similarly sized subjects, project a realism dependent on scale. The couple’s pieces reflect one of Goldenstein’s remarks: “Drawing is an intimate activity that seemed ideal for depicting my domestic environment.”

Stewart’s dry pigment renditions of both canine and feline companions possess an entirely modern sensibility. With velvety, sometimes brash color, his chromatic work has an almost cinematic quality, and there’s a full-frontal, blue-tinged, Hollywood glamour to images like “Cleo.” Furthermore, his cropped black and white drawing of a cat named Neko emphasizes her mysterious nature and reminds me of Roman Polanski’s camera work in Rosemary’s Baby—wherein what you don’t see plays a role in how you look at what you do see (although some viewers might find the cropping distracting).

Stewart’s “Neko With Bird” shows the cat’s body twisting alongside an alarmed bird in flight and has the dynamism of a Robert Longo drawing. Only “Cleo on The Boat” seems overworked rather than muscular. Interestingly, images like “Cleo Running” and “Cleo Looking Back” are about the artist’s perspective, with Cleo’s face indistinct due to movement or her form seen from the viewpoint of a master following his charge. Stewart says he has always thought of animals “as crucial allies in the struggle with life.”

Taylor’s star subject, a German Shepherd, lacks Cleo’s joie-de-vivre given that he’s asleep in most paintings. But the artist counteracts a soporific mood with vibrant reds and yellows and passionately applied pigment in liberal doses. With a brand of expressionism unlike Stewart’s, Taylor creates emotion-driven but unsentimental work that feels direct yet imaginative.

Taylor’s artist’s statement reads, “Painting from the live model (especially one that may walk away at any moment) forces an intensity and urgency of focus which helps me to paint with more efficiency and immediacy.” That sense of immediacy results in exuberant art. The ultra 2-D “stacking effect” of multiple figures doesn’t always make sense of Taylor’s pictorial space, but it’s certainly not ordinary.

This is a show for art and animal lovers alike (and particularly those who are both). And all involved are doing a lot to earn their keep.

December 16, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 51 © 2004 Metro Pulse