I recently paid a visit to the Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco to see American Gothic, a collaborative exhibition by Deborah Oropallo and Michael Goldin. The mixed media work that comprised the show concerns their farm in Northern California and ecological issues, subjects which are obviously related and both of which Oropallo has addressed in her work over the past several years.

Although I’d previously seen at least one sculpture by Oropallo,1 I believe this is the first gallery show I’ve attended to feature such work. I’m not familiar with Goldin, but Oropallo’s aesthetic is so strong and makes such a seamless jump to the three-dimensional that it actually took some time before I realized I hadn’t before seen a show of hers largely made up of sculptural work.

Oropallo and Goldin’s piece American Gothic takes not only its title but its imagery from the Grant Wood painting, possibly the most recognized work in the history of American art. Wood’s two figures are gone, leaving only the farmer’s spectacles and his pitchfork, which now has a sewn rawhide handle replacing the functional wooden one. The Gothic-style farmhouse window from Wood’s piece appears as “reflections” in the lenses of the glasses. By encapsulating the composition in just these elements, Oropallo and Goldin have retained the “salt of the earth” allusion while opening up the image, making it less specific and more inclusive. The piece reimagines Wood’s painting in a manner that steps up the original slightly unsettling feel while also being informed by its common satirical reading and innumerable parodies.

Figuring prominently in the show are images of animals and objects from the farm. Bulls, boars, chickens, and especially sheep appear, or are at least conjured, as well as boots and buckets. Several of the three-dimensional pieces feature ducks; those in Crude and the Reflections series, covered in glossy or matte black resin, recall those horrible photos we’ve all seen of birds caught in the oil tanker spills which wreak havoc on our environment, both in the ocean and on land. In Dangling Ducks 1 and 2, the fowl appear to be burned and melting, their bills seemingly turning to liquid and dripping, as if in some darkly surreal animated cartoon.

I’ve been following Oropallo’s career for about thirty years, and her work continues to surprise. Even so, she is always building on her previous work, and certain motifs – her personal environment and the fairy tales in the present exhibition, for example – have appeared and re-appeared. This continuity was accentuated by the showing in the gallery of additional pieces, not part of this body of work, some dating back to the early 1990s. Snow White (1994) and Bad Apples (2016) both have Snow White-inspired imagery, as does the new HAVEAHART, a disturbingly humorous piece that has Snow White and all Seven Dwarfs caught in animal traps.2 Similarly, the painting Cloning Bo Peep from 2010 has echoes in BO PEEP, which evokes violence of some sort; taken by itself, I would assume against women, as so many fairy tales end badly for them. However, given the themes of the show, I think its subjects are industrial farming and animal cruelty.

Although in her video pieces Oropallo has been working with other artists for several years,3 I believe she has only recently started doing so outside of that medium.4 I presume she is attracted to the creative dialogue inherent in collaboration, which exposes her to different approaches, as throughout her career working alone, she has continually changed her techniques for making art. Like Robert Rauschenberg, she seems uncomfortable getting too comfortable – this has served her well; she has consistently produced engaging, challenging exhibitions, of which American Gothic was but the most recent.

 

1 Love + Marriage (2004), which celebrates the same-sex marriages that took place in San Francisco over twenty-nine days in February/March 2004, is on view at San Francisco City Hall, South Light Court.

2 The Haveahart® company makes humane catch and release animal traps, eight of which are used in the piece.

3 Three videos were shown in the Catharine Clark Gallery media room during the run of American Gothic. White as Snow, Wolf, and Dirty are all collaborations with Jeremiah Franklin, and take as their subject gender issues – another of Oropallo’s recurring interests, which she has also notably explored in the series Guise and Kink, among others.

4 To my knowledge, this is only the second time – Oropallo and Andy Rappaport, who have worked together on video pieces, produced the letterpress print DISARM in 2020.

In 1987, I had been painting for several years and had developed a process and a style which was artistically satisfying for me. The work was all figurative, although sometimes it was difficult to decipher how the forms made up a human body; the paintings were relatively large; the models almost exclusively female; and the palette generally high contrast and very colorful. Although I now think the work was fairly sophisticated for my age, the thought of approaching a gallery did not occur to me; it had, however, crossed the mind of someone else. The young woman with whom I was living had made a few calls, scheduled an appointment with Accurate Art Gallery, put three canvases in the back of her red Chevrolet Sprint, and went off to peddle my wares, all without my knowledge. I don’t know what I would have thought had I known – probably that no one would give them a second look.

As it happened, Accurate’s gallery director was interested and wanted to keep the three pieces to hang. The first time I saw my work there, through the window one night when the gallery was closed, I became nauseated. It wasn’t that I was concerned about what people would think of the paintings, or even that I thought people would know something about me because of them. I can’t explain it, except to say the experience made me feel exposed and vulnerable and sick to my stomach. Nevertheless, I did accept their offer of a show, which during the summer of 1988 would be part of Introductions, an event for which twenty galleries in Sacramento and Davis would present artists exhibiting for the first time.1

For the next several months, I painted without really thinking about the show. I imagine I must have felt some pressure from needing to produce, but I don’t believe that was a real issue for me. I grew to enjoy seeing my work hanging at Accurate, which was located in the Masonic Temple in downtown Sacramento. It was a beautiful gallery, certainly one of the largest and nicest in town.2 I thought my paintings looked good in the space, but as the show neared, I began to feel anxiety regarding the whole endeavor.3

When I had finished seven paintings and the show was finally hung, my mother, along with a friend of hers who’d known me my whole life, went to the gallery. While they were viewing the work, the attendant approached them and asked if they were enjoying the show. They replied in the affirmative, and he informed them if they attended the opening reception, they would be able to actually meet the artist. My mother shrugged and said, “Eh, no big deal,” as her friend chuckled to herself.

Just prior to the big night, I asked my sister if she wanted to attend as “Corey Okada,” and do the mingling for me. She refused. She did end up going, as herself; in fact, much of my family, including my mother, was there to support me. It was good to have them and some friends, along with my better half, without whom the show wouldn’t have happened, present, but they couldn’t run interference for me. I had to talk to a lot of strangers, and it was difficult to have them question me about the paintings. Back then, I had absolutely no experience in dealing with potential art buyers or in speaking about my work. I wasn’t trying to be difficult, but I did simply refuse to answer some queries.4 I don’t remember much else about the three hours of the reception itself, although I was relieved when it ended and we went to dinner at Fuji, a Japanese restaurant my family had frequented since I was a child.

The show went on to become a success. Not only did I survive the opening, but five of my seven pieces sold. Over the years, I have occasionally run into the former director of Accurate, and he has told me how much everyone there was excited by that first exhibition, and how satisfying it was for them that it sold well. Looking back, it took a few shows before I could really enjoy a reception, but even so, those few years were an exhilarating time for me.

Only a couple months after the show ended, the gal and I parted company and she moved out of our midtown apartment where, in the back room, I had painted all the work. In 1989, I had my second solo show at Accurate, which would soon close up shop. Almost all of the twenty galleries which took part in Introductions ’88 are long gone, as is the Japanese restaurant.

My ex went on to open her own gallery, where I currently exhibit my work. The stress I now feel prior to a solo reception is minimal; I can have a good time talking with both friends and strangers. I do, however, still have to sleep a lot the next day, and that has nothing to do with how much champagne I may have consumed the previous evening.

 

1 Outside of school, my work had been shown in public only once before, at the Crocker Art Museum’s Sixty-Second Annual Crocker-Kingsley Exhibition in the spring of 1987. I really don’t remember anything about the show or even the reception, except for the slinky white ribbed dress my better half wore that evening.

2 The space is now occupied by a deli. So it goes.

3 Around this time, my friend Michael suggested I write down my thoughts, because I’d only have one first show. Unfortunately, I didn’t take his advice – I had no idea that almost thirty-five years later, such a document would be helpful in writing a blog post.

4 All these years later, this still occasionally occurs.

Since 2016 the handbasket that is the United States has been on a non-stop flight to its proverbial destination.1 The landing gear is down and our seats are in the full upright and locked position – I advise strapping in and bracing for impact.

There have been some terrible years for the US during my lifetime: in 1968, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Kennedy, and Andy Warhol were shot, and nearly 17,000 troops were killed in Vietnam; in both 1994 and 1995, over 49,000 people died from AIDS-related complications; in 2001, there were the September 11 terrorist attacks, in which nearly 3000 people died, and their aftermath. Eventually we’ll see how history will view 2020, although I’m confident I know without the benefit of hindsight what the results of that exercise will be. Up to this point, we’ve seen over 226,000 deaths from COVID-19 (“their new hoax”); over 8.5 million acres burned in wildfires (“… you got to get rid of the leaves”); social unrest of a magnitude unheard of in decades (“[Black Lives Matter] is a symbol of hate”); and complete and utter ineptitude, amorality, narcissism, nepotism, bigotry, and corruption in the highest levels of government (“No, I don’t take responsibility at all”).2

On a personal level, one of my closest friends passed away in July. For me, 2020 has been the worst year ever –  that includes 2001, when a friend’s body was found and the police called me because my phone number was in his wallet. I was asked to call his family to tell them to contact the “hospital.” It includes 2004, when I was laid up for months following a car accident and I had to learn how to walk again. It’s been worse than 2013, when a friend was killed by a tow truck that ran a red light and hit his car, and a month later my grandmother passed away. As horrible as all those things were, they were at least knowable; they allowed for an emotional process. 2020 has been worse because of the uncertainty of it all, the knowledge that our health is reliant on other people doing the right thing, and the profound dread of what could happen next Tuesday.

News From Home show announcement (2020). Archival Gallery.

One often hears from artistic people that “[my vocation] saved my life.” I’ve never really thought that, but during these recent months, I have felt that painting has kept me on the good side of the mental health line. It’s kept me busy, given me something on which to focus, allowed me some sense of accomplishment while isolated. Even so, I haven’t had an easy time of it,3 and the resulting show is not the one I had envisioned a year ago. I had been exploring ideas while working on three-dimensional mixed media constructions, ideas which I had planned on integrating into paintings for this show. Unfortunately, due to my scattered state of mind, I was unable to deliver on that – only one piece in the show is made with anything beyond paint on canvas. None of the pieces are connected conceptually; they too are scattered, so perhaps this is a perfectly appropriate show for me to mount as we near the end of this shattered year.

News from Home will run from November 5 to December 5, 2020 at Archival Gallery in Sacramento CA.

 

1 Mixed Metaphors “R” Us.

2 Four actual quotes from he who is currently squatting in the White House. Squatting in more ways than one.

3 I am very aware that a lot of people have had it much worse than I.

Deborah Oropallo and Andy Rappaport: still (detail) from FLOOD (2019). Video installation.

I recently saw FLOOD, a video installation by Deborah Oropallo and Andy Rappaport at the Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco. Oropallo is one of my favorite contemporary artists; I’ve been following her work since the early 1990s, when her paintings were actually made of oil on canvas. However, even then she was not a traditional painter – her conceptual bent has always been strong, and she often used silkscreens, rollers, and other tools in lieu of brushes. Her work has continually evolved, building on previous ideas while taking in new techniques and technologies. Since 2000, she has been utilizing digital imagery, which she manipulates on a computer and often works into on the canvas or paper itself. In 2017, she began collaborating with Rappaport on video projects which retain her painterly aesthetic without, obviously, being made with any paint at all.

Oropallo and Rappaport have been working with the theme of climate change and its impact on our population. Between 1995 and 2015, 2.3 billion people worldwide were affected by flooding. In this incarnation, FLOOD consists of three video screens, set in line horizontally, showing still images culled from internet news sources. Flooded streets appear and are gradually overlapped by photos of people in the deluge. The images continue to accumulate, the waters continue to rise, and the frame fills with more and more people. Rappaport’s score builds along with the images, from the musique concrète sounds of water to a pulsing beat – the impact of the whole is hypnotic, poignant, and affecting – a poetic call to action.

I’m not very learned re video art, but, as always, Oropallo excels here. The layering/montaging in the video is an extension of what she does so brilliantly in her paintings, expanded to epic proportions through the added dimension of time. Over the course of about twenty minutes, hundreds of individual images are seen. In this age, when information is so quickly forgotten in favor the next new story, to spend that amount of time contemplating a single subject is nothing short of revolutionary.

FLOOD will be on view through Saturday, March 28 – spare no pains to see it.

I’m not one for making resolutions, but I do know that I’ll be painting a lot in the coming months, as I have a September show scheduled at Archival Gallery in Sacramento CA. I’ll be showing paintings alongside work by Laureen Landau, which I really couldn’t be looking forward to more.

The last few years, I’ve been working in a different manner. From the time I first started painting until recently, I made detailed graphite or ink studies for my work. There came a time when although I was making good paintings that I liked, they weren’t the paintings I wanted to make. I needed a change. It’s important to me that my finished work not come too easily, so I stopped keeping a sketchbook and replaced it with a notebook. I write ideas and notes for pieces, occasionally doing a rough thumbnail sketch. These notes may include compositional ideas, a list of collage material to compile, prospective titles, concepts to research, reference points, et al. It’s a more open-ended process than I’m used to, and it’s been challenging and engaging in a way that painting hasn’t been for some time.

I’ve also recently done some mixed-media construction work, of which I’ve done very little in the past. Artistically, this put me in foreign territory, which I enjoyed. Besides being satisfying in themselves, these pieces have opened up possibilities for my painting.

I have confidence in my ability to draw and to paint, so my artistic ambitions lie beyond that. My goal is to make work that is compelling on multiple levels. Of course, I want my paintings to work in purely formal/aesthetic terms. In addition, although I generally play it pretty close to the chest as to what my work is “about” – much of my symbolism being personal – the work should elicit some response: emotional, intellectual, physical. I hope it’s apparent that the work is thoughtful and conceptually layered, even if the viewer is very unlikely to decode my singular vocabulary.

So, in 2020, I will present a strong show of work with which I am satisfied not only as a viewer, but as the painter. I’ll see you in September, after which I’ll resolve to get some sleep.