A woman holds a tiny moustached man in her hand while in the background spikes jut from a mountain impaling hearts. A banjo-picking woman stands atop the belly of a giant horse while a man stands underneath smoking a cigarette. Diamond-headed people climb a ramp up to a woman’s mouth and push armfuls of diamonds inside. A sad, tired woman holds a heart in her hand while a butterfly flits about her mouth. A sour man and bear face each other atop a forest of triangle pines. The characters seem alienated from one another and their environs.
Naked men with extravagant facial hair lean against a box, sit in a field, perch atop a horse or a bicycle or the hood of a speeding truck. Curator Raphaela Platow says Rojas intends all these naked dudes, put in the poses of ladies in fashion spreads, to be a sly satire of pop culture’s objectification of women. On the landing of the stairs between the museum’s two floors, a sculpture of a naked man, a cartoon come to life, “pees” water into the museum’s fountain below while holding a flat-screen television playing a video of Rojas singing as her countrified alter ego, Peggy Honeywell. Downstairs, Rojas refitted the fountain’s jets so that they are cocks and balls spraying water. Uh-huh.
Rojas paints in latex and gouache on paper or plywood. She favors big flat shapes topped with fine outlines. The paintings come in two sizes, tiny or giant. Sometimes she borders them with a patchwork of fabric. Elsewhere she arranges painted wood tiles into giant triangle trees, geometricized flowers, a barn.
She throws in stuff I generally like — folk painting, quilting, mid-century children’s-book illustration, cartoons, a giant squirrel, adolescent bathroom humor, nudity. I practically feel duty bound to go all gooey for her art, but I’m left feeling indifferent instead.
A lot of contemporary artists have this charming, handmade, crafty look. Rojas, who was born in 1976 and got her BFA from RISD, is often grouped with West Coasters like Barry McGee, whose interests include graffiti, and his late wife, Margaret Kilgallen, whose cartoony tramp art broadsides were featured in the 2002 Whitney Biennial. In fact, McGee, who had a solo show at Brandeis in 2004, now dates Rojas.
Pictures I’ve seen of Rojas’s other shows seem more mysterious and original, more individual. At Brandeis, her images feel precious and cold, the jokes half-baked. She has impeccably hip tastes, but here she hasn’t digested them and made them her own.
“Clare Rojas: Hope Springs Eternal” | Rose Art Museum | Brandeis University, 415 South St, Waltham | through April 1
“Loïs Mailou Jones: The Early Works: Paintings and Patterns 1927–1937” | School of the Museum of Fine Arts | 230 The Fenway, Boston | through October 14