Constance Mallinson
OC Weekly
March 8-14, 1996The Golden Land
In the name of progress
by Doree Dunlap
Most of the landscapes in "Paintings of the New Landscape" are hung on the walls, but that's the exhibit's only nod to tradition. The artists at Peter Blake Gallery in Laguna Beach do not squint at their canvases to capture canyon oaks bathed in golden light. Instead, they set landscapes in the real world – such as land development seen from a driver's perspective, Jurassic fantasy with a trailer park, and rain forests haunted by shadows. Some of them are so visually dense that you might have a tough time navigating through the forest for the trees.
Take Darlene Campbell's works. Her tightly rendered, postcard-size paintings are awash in a sea of gold leaf. She savagely addresses land development and its impact on O.C.'s disappearing natural landscape. Part of the Picture shows the San Joaquin Hills corridor cutting a cement swath as wide as a football field through Laguna Canyon. Campbell presents a bird's-eye view of the evolving canyon landscape: concrete pillars jut toward the sky, earthmovers squat on mounds and electric poles buzz with power. In her Remnant, strawberry fields stretch in the distance, asphalt covers the foreground, and white concrete buildings rise in the middle ground, a generic view of the landscape you, dear traveler, can see where the 405 meets the 5. Sadly, the reality of Campbell's vision is too true, and her touches of gold leaf on the face and sides of her canvases suggest that the land is golden – but only for those who plunder and pillage in the name of progress.
Sandow Birk's fanciful Rise and Fall of L.A. shows Jurassic Park colliding with the remains of L.A. A triceratops and a tyrannosaur battle to the death, woolly mammoths sink into the ooze of the La Brea tar pits, raptors cavort in the forest primeval, and pterodactyls soar in the sunset above a planned community that looks like a combination of Claude Monet's haystack-like huts and a displaced aluminum trailer. In the foreground, a Neanderthal man clutches an oversized femur while he flees through the forest. Southern California's future, perhaps? Birk's playful attitude suggests that nature has the power to engulf anything humans build. The only detail I would have added is Raquel Welch in animal skins.
Constance Mallinson presents several issues to the viewer, one of which is humanity's connection to nature. One shows a mighty redwood surging toward the city. It is painted on the front panel of a pair of men's briefs. Another shows a gushing waterfall painted on a woman's panties. Mallinson obviously has interests besides flora and fauna.
Mallinson's more sober Missing Rain Forest is a wild montage of leaves, vines, grasses, reeds and dried flowers framing an oil on canvas. Shadows with no visible source create the illusion of a human threat hovering over the forest.
Credit for several exquisite landscapes goes to Astrid Preston. Some are rambunctious with borders of fluttering butterflies (calling to mind scenes from the film Angels and Insects), while others are quietly reclusive. Spring Garden is a small, intimate, highly manicured landscape framed by two flowering cherry trees. The hedges are clipped, the cypresses are conical and neatly trimmed, and the lawn and path are immaculately groomed. This painting is far removed from Mallinson's or Birk's jumbo-gumbo landscapes, for in Preston's world humankind does not intrude except to prune.
Gallery owner Peter Blake brings a unique energy to the gallery business. You've heard of the "starving artist" scenario; Blake is a starving gallery owner. He is so passionate about the gallery business that at night he works as a maitre d' at Romero in Laguna and his wife works at Barneys in South Coast Plaza to keep the gallery doors open. He credits Preston with the idea for the current exhibition, saying her work was the impetus and her generosity and suggestions brought together artists whose combined visions created the show's theme.
Blake does not put works on hold for prospective clients. Moreover, he asks clients to cut a check immediately so he can pay his artists... an unusual attitude in a fast-and-loose business. Now, for the first time in three years, Blake feels secure enough to plan gallery shows seven months in advance – perhaps because his devoted clientele, when lean times come, protects the gallery from closing.
When you visit Blake's gallery, don't be put off by his tacky commercial neighbors, all of whom specialize in kitsch art and faux antiques – those Laguna seascapes and gilded tables tourists charge on their Visas and Mastercards. The Blakes are serious about building a reputable gallery, one that showcases serious artists. But their commitment is tinged with humor. While hanging this exhibit, Blake told me he is looking forward to the work of one artists in the show, Joseph Mangrum. It seems Mangrum, who is known for a Santa Ana gallery installation made of orange slices and molasses (to capture the wealth and rot of the county) promised to do an abstract painting with flowers, beeswax and molasses on a wall in a small annex room. Mangrum, Blake said, has also promised him a painting made entirely of cornbread. "It will," he assured me, "be completely edible."
