The starting point for this lively patterned abstraction was an earlier canvas by Stuart Davis entitled House and Street, 1931. Treating each subsequent version as a riff on a jazz theme, Davis moved further and further away from his original composition to establish independent, rhythmic color patterns that retained only a few direct visual cues to the original composition. Davis theorized that abstract compositions could communicate to the viewer something of the subject from which they were derived. This composition embodies the “mellow pad”—jazz lingo for the “cool” place to be. Jazz rhythms were a potent inspiration for Davis, and their presence added a distinctly American component to his abstractions. - Dominic Carter.
American painter Stuart Davis (1892 - 1964) was a jazz lover who was deeply impressed by Cubism, collage, and other techniques of the European avant-garde. But he didn’t want to paint like a European. He wanted his work to be about America - improvisation - fresh melodies over the continuoulsy repeating cycle of chord changes of a tune. The Mellow Pad intentionaly weaves the high cultural tone of formal abstract painting with American popular culture.
The Brooklyn Museum of Art states in the description of the work:
Mellow and pad were hipster words of the era. Thus, The Mellow Pad, a strickingly bold painting creates chaos and plays with paint the way jazz musicians play with sound. Colorful shapes vibrate and move on the canvas as if it’s a crowded dance floor, and all this jazzy energy is contained by a light blue border—which, you’ll notice, is broken here and there, as if the party might just spill into the next room.
“You’ve got to find some way of saying it without saying it.” - Duke Ellington
Mellow Pad by Stuart Davis, oil on canvas is on display at the Brooklyn Museum of Art
“I paint and draw things from my imagination, which is filled with bits and pieces of experiences that I’ve lived, juxtaposed with what I’m experiencing now, and projecting what I feel will happen in the future, states the late Benny Andrews in his artist’s statement.
“While I make works of a lot of subjects, such as still lifes and landscapes, I’m really interested in doing works of people. To me, everything revolves around the individual,” he continues.” A successful work of a person or people is one that evokes some kind of emotion. I want my images of people to give off a feeling of being real. By real, I don’t mean rendering them photographically, but rather something more abstract, something more than what the viewer usually sees.”
“My subject matter is very broad, and I am very inclusive of whom I depict, although I do have a large representation of African-Americans in a high percentage of my works,” says Andrews. “Often, it’s not their race that I’m presenting, but rather what they are doing. I’m also very responsive to people who reflect their lives in their work and leisure.”
“When I depict the affluent, it’s often from the position of my being outside of their world, and I try to depict that perspective in how I represent them,” says Andrews. In short, I’m a people’s painter.”
The G.R. N’Namdi Gallery in Chicago presents the works of BENNY ANDREWS Friday, December 3, 2010 through January 30, 2011. Opening reception, December 3, 2010 from 6:00 pm to 9 pm.
