"It's kind of a recovery project, where an object that has been thrust into the market is returned to its own context," Slick explains. He aims to put Native objects back into "mythic space."
Slick doesn't spell this out in the paintings, so many viewers won't catch on. Even if you identify the Native iconography, his symbolism can seem undeveloped or random — coyote, Navajo dancer, birds, silhouettes of people smoking cigarettes, a man's shadow. The images feel like the occasion for painting, but the main point is painting itself. They're something like a random particle — who cares what — that floats into an oyster's shell and, after layers of coating, becomes a pearl.
Sometimes Slick's paint is thick and cracking like the walls of a derelict house (he achieved the effect using "Crackle Paste"), but mostly it is creamy smooth. Atop the final surface, he builds raised paint ridges — diamonds or zigzag lines, sometimes inspired by traditional Native blanket patterns. The paintings are seductive as well as fussy, uptight, hermetic. Getting their full effect requires patience and long looking. The result is delicate minimalist meditative art.
Read Greg Cook's blog at gregcookland.com/journal.
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Topics:
Museum And Gallery
, U.S. Army, Painting, Visual Arts, More
, U.S. Army, Painting, Visual Arts, Native American Issues, Rhode Island College, RISD, duane slick, duane slick, Less
