Laura Chasman and Kirsten Stoltmann
Allston Skirt Gallery, Allston
May 3 - June 16, 2001
In her new series of gouache portraits of adolescents, Laura Chasman presents a straightforward view of young people at a particularly un-straightforward time in their lives. A portrait of an adolescent -- someone at that poignant, fleeting moment where childhood is slipping into the past and young adulthood looms -- raises questions about the transitory identity captured on paper. Laura Chasman presents each of her subjects simply, without the distraction of much, if any, background detail, and allows her subjects to express themselves purely through their own stance, choice of wardrobe, and facial expression, which in these cases betray a wide and disarming mix of self-consciousness, feigned expressionlessness, and the joyful goofiness of kids mugging in front of a camera.
Laura Chasman has been using gouache on paper for over 25 years, and creates these portraits from her own snapshots of neighbors and friends. Although portraiture is a traditional genre, Chasman’s work is profoundly contemporary, both in her style of painting, which bows to the flattening tendencies of photography as well as to the modernist eye of figurative painters such as Alice Neel, and in the directness and honesty with which she portrays her subjects, whether slouchy, in cargo pants, or shy, in Halloween costumes. The beauty of her work is in the uniqueness she finds in each child, and the voice she gives them -- the portraits speak about the many things it means to be an adolescent today, and about what it means to be a figurative painter today.
The mesmerizing video "Boys and Flowers," by Kirsten Stoltmann offers another glimpse into the world of adolescents/adolescence. To create this video, Kirsten Stoltmann built an elaborate skateboard set-up in her Chicago studio, then invited local skate-boarders to skate while she videotaped them. Accompanied only by hypnotic electronic music, the grace and charm of these youths creates a sort of impenetrable surface of beauty in motion, washing over the awkwardness or aimlessness that otherwise comes with the territory for teenage boys.
ALLSTON SKIRT GALLERY
129 Braintree Street, Allston, MA 02134
www.allstonskirt.com
