Art & Critique » Todd Bonita

Todd Bonita: Cows

elijah — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:25:52 +0000

Cows are sizable animals, yet in two of these paintings the artist makes them appear small. This contrast characterizes them as helpless, as if a part of a machine controlled by an invisible giant, possibly a tyrant. We realize that the machine is the cattle industry whereas the giant is the man behind it. I think that in this setting the images will elicit different emotions from different people: remorse and pity from some, curiosity and indifference from others. I don’t think, however, that the artist intended to judge the audience. Instead he focuses solely on the theme; he presents his inarticulate models as either content and oblivious, when in a rural environment, or, as irritated, confused and alert when in a large-scale farm or auction theater.

Stylistic divergence parallels the emotional one. The piece you see below is evidently realistic; it exploits the little light there is to create a rather anemic pattern (apparently the cow’s shadow) on the ground, while the darker details (particularly in the background) receive strained attention — shadow is king, light is only the page. The artist makes a virtue out of necessity and veers towards realism where impressionism would suffocate due to lack of natural illumination. The other two works, however, can be categorized as impressionistic with nearly the same certainty. Light dethrones shade, which recedes into the hangar’s belly or disappears altogether, and adds characteristic distortions: amplifies close subjects and misshapes them slightly into somewhat generalized types.

It’s interesting how the rural environment, though including a fence, seems compact yet welcoming, as opposed to the vast industrial spaces, which nevertheless cast a claustrophobic sense of no escape. The animal stands undisturbed where grass grows under its hooves, but is constantly on the move — as if on a production line — in enclosed settings. Indeed, the freedom of choice of feed, one of the few liberties domesticated animals may have, appears to have been denied of the animals in industrial farms. Perhaps the random patterns on the cows’ skins may be seen as a protest; a chaotic antidote to the mechanical horizontal and vertical lines of the fences and the supporting pillars.

I think that in these paintings the artist probes into the basic instinct of freedom, common to all animals, including humans. The wide areas with overhanging metal and wood restrict the inhabitants from all directions, and our instinctive reaction of shrinking back when looking (or visiting) can be explained simply: we would not want to live there. We don’t ask the cows… but maybe they can provide some food — for thought too?

Todd Bonita: The Keys to Desire

elijah — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 20:42:03 +0000

Several months ago I reviewed a still life with a key by J Matt Miller — that piece, however, displayed the object against a wall. Todd Bonita places his keys on a background of wood, and, it appears that in such minimalistic scenes that makes all the difference. Impenetrable stone “rejects” the key and marks it as a notionally autonomous object, a carved and patterned chunk of metal, poised in a connotative vacuum, which is to be filled by the beholder’s imagination. Wood, however, immediately associates with a door, a foil that dovetails with a key to evoke a specific and familiar circumstance. In the former variation, the key appeared as a detached purposeless thing (an idealistic approach with its own merit), here it is being showcased as a practical instrument.

Why not examine these paintings from the perspective of the “desire” principle — I was introduced to it during my university studies, and recently encountered a few articles about it on the web. Apparently, libidinal desire, either sublimated into artistic goals, or primordially sexual, drives all people, at all times, all their lives, with only occasional stops for brief pleasurable satisfactions. In a way it is like an inner atomic reactor that may or may not exhaust its fuel as we age. According to this theory, excess energy from this reactor may spill into works of art. The moment at which an artist completes a painting is marked with pleasure, a metaphoric union with the piece that brings him or her a temporary satisfaction and relief.

I think that these paintings summarize this theory in a visual form. (Which is not surprising, considering the highly symbolical nature of the key as an object.) Lets start from the end: a key inside a lock would constitute a union and a satisfaction of desire. It, however, is not there, though tauntingly close, the door being in the background. The desire of the key to reach its designated place can be deduced from the rusty colors covering the steel; the reddish-brown shades of the wood travel to the metal, as if the two are trying to achieve some kind of a superficial merger. Ubiquitous brown color pumps in an energy of totality and, consequently, we again witness the scenes as manifestations of the powerful desire for unity, strained and nearing satisfaction.

Various compositional elements serve as a “cold shower” to cool off the atmosphere and divert the gaze from the intensity of the monochrome. (I actually believe that it emits a certain pre-orgasmic overflowing wave — the reason I thought it would be interesting to utilize a psychological theory for this interpretation in the first place.) So the crack in the wood, the shadows as compositional echoes, value modulations of the main color, the lines and the texture of the wood, the inner corners of the box, the nail — they all alleviate the tension, but do not dissipate it. That way the paintings pose an unending source of fascination, as if contaminated by radioactivity emanating from the artist’s own creative reactor.

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Todd Bonita: Marine Scenes with Boats

elijah — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:35:21 +0000

Todd Bonita (visit his website, the blog “Painting-Life” and the “Art Blog“) is an American artist who paints realistic still life, portraits and marine scenes with boats, which play an important part in his repertoire and are the focus of this review.

Autumnal palette and murky waters, bloated with soft rippling, lull the viewer, as if placing him or her inside one of the vessels. Concurrently, these may be seen as cradles, rocked by the sea — a figurative maternal entity of such magnitude as to reduce any seafarer into an infant. The rhythm of the ripples soothes; the surface absorbs and creases light to produce repetitious hypnotic patterns that float upon the sea as a weightless iridescent net. It gradually enmeshes the imagination, as if cast into the beholder’s mind with the secret motive to fish dreams out of its depths. The artist captures the mystical essence of human relationship with the sea in a counterpoint of realistic depiction, keeping stylistic balance and producing sober and neat compositions.

Geometrical juxtaposition of planes, lines and figures adds the necessary material weight to the prone to fancy images: the blue of the sea and the white of the boats may undergo a simple overturn to represent a filled with clouds sky. To keep the viewer’s head away from such lofty realms, the artist emphasizes the dynamic between the two dimensional plane of the water and the three dimensional objects that float upon it — a scientific reality check, stipulated, nevertheless, by an artistic purpose. A pair of curved planes form the sides of the boats; perpendicular rectangular planks link the sides in what might be seen as an explicit spatial maneuver. Bent lines meet at the head and form a powerful triangle. These are not clouds but sturdy and well thought-out vessels; they arise above the waters to control them.

Paradoxically, said mathematically objective hierarchy of dimensions reminds of man’s tense and unstable interaction with the sea — a power play of fear and domination, with precedence constantly shifting from the element to those who try to master it, and back. The sea likes to remind sailors that it is not only flat, but also deep. Furthermore, by setting off the scientific known, expressed by a stylistic method, against the mentioned unpredictable forces of reverie the artist implies how the search for knowledge and information continuously upsets the balance achieved in this interaction. More advanced navigating instruments disturb the status quo by inspiring hubris; it’s sextant versus fata-morgana — a battle of Titans…