Jolynn Reigeluth, who turns 30 this year, has a muse that speaks to her loud and clear and in a fabulous array of bright colors. Her art show, “Too Little, Too Late,” opens at Athens Arts Gallery in downtown Crawfordsville on Thursday and runs through July 15. Do not miss this fiesta of an art experience just right for summer.
How often do we get to see arrestingly bright faces, one red, one gold, with eyes outlined in kohl, looking straight at us as they communicate with or fend off objects that surround them? In one instance, it’s an Arlequino figure, straight out of Italy’s Commedia dell’arte tradition. Or, in the case of the gold-faced person, watching lozenges of green and white (like mis-colored Good and Plentys) stream out of the subject’s ears. How can this be? Oh, and a striped banana plays a part here too. Another Reigeluth portrait features a female figure — perhaps she is your friendly librarian with googly eyes and a proboscis of immense proportion. She sports a mop of curly gold hair, is surrounded by an obelisk of sorts. A male face stares at her open-mouthed. Could it be because she is without clothing?
If all these portraits sound improbable and far from beautiful to look upon, just wait until you see them. This brilliant graphic art skillfully combines the bright, rich and alluring colors and shapes of a carnival sideshow with a high level of skill that affects a viewer much the same way as a portrait by Gustav Klimt. Jolynn Reigeluth’s backgrounds are alive and beguiling with artful, geometric segments creating arabesques, patches and medallions that glitter and ground and please much in the same way that Viennese art that Klimt created.
When Reigeluth speaks of her own work, she notes that her current work “earnestly and humorously reflects on the emotional and physical aspects of the human condition and its twisted ironies. The images are born of a fascination with the most ‘unmentionable’ yet ubiquitous human characteristics and the absurdity of long-standing gender expectations. Through a tongue-in-cheek lens, I examine the plight of everyday humans who are largely worried, embarrassed, disappointed, and burned-out. I consider my recent works as introspective self-portraits that aim to shed light on the untold internal monologues with which we are so often preoccupied.
“My artistic practice is driven by a love for the physical act of drawing, and a desire to create images and objects that provide peculiar emotional and sensorial experiences. The imagery is fueled by humor and spontaneity and is filled with an inventiveness and ambiguity of subject matter that ranges from cheekily adolescent to darkly absurd.”
The community is invited to visit Athens Arts, 216 E. Main St., anytime between Thursday and July 15 to see this show. An artist’s reception for Reigeluth is planned from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. June 9. Music will be provided by guitarist Steve Charles and light refreshments will be served.
