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cally geometric central figure – a
Pangean orb with a white-hot
core. This imagery evokes the
likes of Strazza’s Veiled Virgin or
Sanmartino’s Cristo Velato. But
unlike those masterpieces of
marble, Evans does not provide
substantive stone. We begin and
end with the veil. In the words
of Aldous Huxley at his door of
perception, “for the artist as for
the mescaline taker draperies are
living hieroglyphs that stand in
some peculiarly expressive way
for the unfathomable mystery of
pure being.” Like I said… trippy.
But the disquieting effect of
Evans’ textured surfaces cannot
be attributed to mere hallucinogens.
After years of honing his
craft, Evans grew to understand
“how shapes in fabric, metal and
paper are determined by underlying
forms, movement and
bending. It has become such
a natural part of my visual vocabulary
that I use it freely and
abstractly.” Evans, the master of
veils – so good at making the
mask he no longer needs the
face to mold it. “Airbrushing is
so natural for me that I no longer
think about technique. I
work in a meditative state, trusting
instincts and feelings, enabling
thoughts and memories
to become imbedded into my
paintings.” Realism and abstraction
are blended, as are past and
present, memories and feelings;
a communion of the inner and
outer world. The use of airbrushing
in Evans’ work encourages
the eye to constantly shift perspectives
from one poetic image
to another. Nothing is ever
made stable, with images shifting
at the same pace his viewers
understand them. “Images and
goals move on and fade as, once
we achieve them, they somehow
seem changed, different than
what we had expected.” In other
words – poet Paul Valéry’s to be
exact – “God made everything
out of nothing. But the nothingness
shows through.” No one
wants the New Year to be melancholic,
but it often is.
In regards to Evans’ work, art
critic and journalist Lorella Pagnucco
Salvemini makes a cogent
argument for the agitation of
his airbrush: “these days, forced
as we are to continuously stumble
on the surface of things –
thoughts, bodies, clothes, words
and visions, we begin to suspect
that these surfaces might hide
something deeper, and we end
up being torn by doubts, consumed
by doubts, which shake
our whole mental superstructure
inherited from the individual and
collective past that has made
us what we are but is no more.”
People will always be scared and
excited by surfaces, our itch to
investigate them borne of our
desire to discover a little more
about who we are, why we are
here, and where we are supposed
to go. But surfaces are
relational – we assume they exist
as the outer shell of that ever-elusive
“more”. A beautiful surface is
seen as a promise of something
beautiful beneath. But what if all
there is, is surface? If memories
are just stories we tell ourselves?
If the promise of the future is not,
in fact, promised?
For those of us who struggle
with the bottomless future (or at
least, struggle to reconcile the
“Beyond Low Earth”
(2017-18, acrylic on linen)
Imposed Symmetry
(acrylic)
“Diagonal Thrust “
(1980 Acrylic)