KATHRYN BRACKETT LUCHS

Transcription

1 6 KATHRYN BRACKETT LUCHS Born Detroit 1950 BFA, MFA, University of Michigan Lives in Lewiston, Michigan I grew up in the Detroit vicinity [and later] moved to what is now called Detroit s Cass Corridor, where I would for the next years paint and also film many of the experimental artists who were there between 1973 and These early influences were essential experiences gutsy, primal, personal, hands on stuff. Ever since, I have experimented with works that mix material approaches and personal thought. Kathryn Brackett Luchs has been making BIG, odd couple hybrids (her preferred term) since the late 80s, often pairing plywood and glassine, canvas and photographs, hard and soft, sturdy and fragile as her signature practice. As such they challenge the conventions of modest scale, tautness, framing, and single sheets of paper associated with the print medium (which she in fact teaches at the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design). Rather, her combinations have instead been conspicuously expansive and enveloping, imposingly large, and relentlessly experimental in execution and appearance. In the studio multiple compositions are usually underway simultaneously. That Brackett Luchs has lived in semi-rural environs post-detroit (Holly, Ann Arbor, South Lyon, Lewiston) accounts in part for the flora and fauna that predominate in her imagery since the 80s: moths, wings, birds, bark, nests. Even in her recent abstract compositions of the last several years, titles such as chrysalis, cocoon, birdy, fossil (along with allegory, Buddha, hybrid) persist. Notable too is her commitment to a compositional format that joins at the hip a matrix (or the parent block, per the artist), and an abutting image derived from it (the offspring ) or lately, a cluster of details appropriated from the matrix. This elemental structure is apparent in both Feeder of 1997 and Birdy of 2013: in the former the gouged, carved, and inked plywood panel on the left yields the pale, rosy, evanescent woodcut on layers of glassine on the right; in the latter, the kinetic whorls of charcoal on gessoed canvas beget the flanking grids of photographs right and left, reminiscent of a triptych with central image and paired wings. In both series, early and recent, as well as in transitional examples, such as Jazzpur s Wing ( ), Brackett Luchs s basic configuration is maintained as her profound intentions are broadened and deepened. Almost from the outset the core concepts of matrix as pivotal element, coupled with the embrace of part and whole, persist as the overriding thematic thrust of her art. Just as neither one technique nor process is sufficient to conjure up a totality hence Brackett Luchs s mixed media process in China Bird (2003) and Fossil & 9 Films (2013) neither a singular print on glassine or drawing on canvas, nor variations of images or clusters of photographs on their own, can adequately convey a comprehensive vision. Instead, burrowing in, building incrementally, adding facets, layers, and nuances via diverse graphic techniques reveals more than a single scan or first impression. Both multiplicity and the application of Duchampian brain fact (i.e., fusing it all together in the mind s eye) breed clarity and understanding. In her latest images, such as Birdy (the largest so far at 7 x 12 ), Allegory, and Fossil & 9 Films (all 2013), Brackett Luchs does just that. Devoid of color and divested of imagery they embody a rarefied realm, cool and purified but fraught with waves of energy. Whether structured as diptych, triptych or polyptych, a surrender to the sweeping, caroming curves, spirals, and coils of charcoal on canvas is irresistible. The eye darts back and forth across a swarm of enlarged photographic details spawned by the dance on the canvas, disposed symmetrically or asymmetrically, reveling, as the artist avers, in perpetual states of changing or becoming. Copyright 2014, Essay'd Dennis Alan Nawrocki, October 2014

2 Feeder, 1997, Mixed media on carved plywood and glassine, 96 x 96

3 Birdy, 2013, Charcoal on gesso on canvas and graphic films, 88 x 144 Image courtesy of the artist

4 Jazzpur s Wing, , Mixed media on carved plywood and charcoal on gesso on canvas, 96 x 60 Image courtesy of the artist

5 China Bird, 2003, Mixed media on carved plywood and glassine, 96 x 96

6 Allegory, 2013, Charcoal on gesso on canvas and graphic films, 84 x 122

7 Fossil & 9 Films, 2013, Charcoal on gesso on canvas and graphic films, 88 x 123 Image courtesy of the artist