Wednesday, July 22, 2009

"Blind Sadness" by S, Chicago, raw pain on paper

Rejection isn’t an easy thing to deal with. Neither, apparently, is going through life with box kites for hands. Chicago artist S debuted this shocker at last week’s “Look What I Did!” showing on the city’s slumbering north side. The reactions ranged from confusion to outrage – proof that S touched a nerve usually well insulated in lattes, sunscreen and Bay Rum. I’m of two minds of this piece, entitled “Blind Sadness”; while I applaud S for not just addressing but taking down and de-tusking the elephant of emotional abandonment in the room, I feel the piece reaches beyond its simple means -- takes that well-earned attention and flaunts it a bit too much -- to try and sneak in some personal artistic postscripts. We may never know who or what BOBOHOO is or represents (best guess is a Twin Peaks-ian father/demon figure – see the encircled BOB) but wouldn’t that make rich texture for a work of its own? Patience, S, the spotlight is focusing, your tools are sharpening, it’s almost show time.

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