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Double visions
Lara Hoke and Dave Mitri foray into the dilemmas of figurative subjectivity at an alternative space in Brooklyn.
By RACHEL YOUENS
Offoffoff.com
Flanked by Park Slope and Sunset Park, Brooklyn in a
neighborhood affectionately called SoSlo (from which
views of Manhattan abide), 'Madarts' combines studios
for working artists and a spacious gallery space. In a
two person show selected from the Madarts artists,
Lara Hoke and Dave Mitri recall the figurative
tradition in portraits of friends and family.
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| LARA HOKE/DAVE MITRI | Exhibition: Lara Hoke/Dave Mitri.
| | SCHEDULE | Madarts Studios
255 18th Street, Brooklyn NY 11215
November 5-13
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In portraits of female friends Lara Hoke conveys a
sense of mutual understanding between artist and sitter. Broadly
designed yet carefully drawn and painted with
transparent glazes, her subjects often relax on chairs
or couches in introspective reverie.
Hoke characterizes her subjects as reserved with a
quiet intelligence. Understated optimism toward her
subject matter is countered by a framing of each
sitter within situations that hint at a narration to
their world at large. Through pictorial devices in
which various aspects of her subjects — arms, legs and
torsos are partially revealed or hidden by large
pillows, arm rests and tables, Hoke establishes themes
of protection and distance, allowance and insight,
expanding the portrayal of her subjects. The mood of
quietude is enhanced by Hoke's shifts in focal points
from crisp linearity to slight blurring across the
pictures surface, giving her work an association to
Vermeer.
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Dave Mitri's paintings explore themes of transition
and alienation. Framing his subjects at close range Mitri moves around
his scenes like a film director to capture various
perspectives. In one series of paintings Mitri
explores the motif of a single young man surrounded by
cardboard boxes. Their open and closed flaps
emphasize empty interiors. Symbolic and theatrical,
the boxes function as environments that confine the
space around each youth and delineate a narrative of
internal vertigo. Here, Mitri is forthrightly
exploring how 'all the world is a stage' in a
Hopperesque sense. His figures are monumental and have
a sense of conviction, yet his emphasis on content
limits his potentially pliant response to the
fluctuations of living emotion through form that
could open up the surfaces and luminosities of his
work.
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| ...the boxes function as environments that
confine the space around each youth and delineate a
narrative of internal vertigo. | |
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Each painter works in tones of umbers, blues and
ochres, while assigning them a different weight and
temperature. Hoke's tones are cool, broad and flushed
with breath. Mitri's are warm, modeled and condensed.
In taking on the psychological aspects of figuration, Hoke and Mitri will continue to provoke forays into contemporary dilemmas of subjectivity.
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DECEMBER 31, 2005
OFFOFFOFF.COM • THE GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE NEW YORK
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