Textured Contrasts: Leone at the Carnegie

+ Click image to enlarge
Marc Leone. Mighty #1298, 2009. Mixed media, 60x60in. Photo Courtesy of the artist.

Marc Leone's exhibition at The Carnegie, continuing through February 19, is an object lesson in multiplicity resulting from limitations. Having determined to use specific sizes, very specific materials, and what might be thought of as an absence of color, Leone proceeds to show us that restriction breeds invention.

The eight works come from two series, “Carbon and Crust” and “The Mighty,” the differences between them being size and shape of the paintings and, for “The Mighty,” the addition of one element, a potent one: volcanic ash. All the works are fashioned from “carbon, graphite, latex paint, earth, acids, and burlap, applied to canvas and mounted on wood” their labels tell us.

In The Carnegie's upstairs Duveneck gallery Leone's paintings are aligned with a nice consideration for size relationships. The long walls, one interrupted by the entrance door, each show multiple works while the shorter end walls face each other with single, identically sized, 60”x72” paintings. The only other piece of that size is directly in the center of the long wall facing the door, flanked by the two paintings from the Mighty series. They, in turn, are the only square pieces in the show, at 60”x60”.

+ Click image to enlarge
Marc Leone. Carbon and Crust #21, 2009. Mixed media, 60x72in. Photo Courtesy of the artist.

The longer portion of the entrance wall juxtaposes two 48”x60” paintings, teasing the eye because they do not look to be proportioned identically. Number 17 in the Carbon and Crust series is horizontally bisected by a three-dimensional thrust, subtly increasing the sense of its width, while #12's field is roughly framed by stretched, black-stained burlap, torn and frayed and contrasting with the burnished elegance of the central relief as well as almost making the work a visual square.

Although these questions of size perception are interesting to explore, they aren't the first response to the exhibition. The first is: What happened to color? Has it gone out of style? But when you've absorbed the possibilities inherent in silvery highlights to black that may be dull-finished, may be rich, cool, or deep, the idea of color begins to seem kitsch. Infinite variety can be had without it. The faint suggestion of brown in wood that's not been painted begins to stand out like a new idea.

+ Click image to enlarge
Marc Leone. Mighty #1328, 2009. Mixed media, 60x60in. Photo Courtesy of the artist.

At first glance these works seem much the same. At second glance, the differences jump out. They could be relief maps of our planet or some future study of planets as yet unexplored. They could record a devastation to come, or the beginning of the world. The artist himself says of his work “Much like geologic processes, the multi-layered paintings are material built up, eroded, and repeated.” He says he could continue the process indefinitely, but that when he feels the image has “a certain resonant power” he stops.

Where he stops the viewer begins. For this viewer, #16, perhaps the closest to an ordnance survey map, describes an area that could be ocean interrupted by islands and marked by straight, human-imposed, white lines. Number 19, cater-cornered in the gallery to #16, is set all over with craters. Both pieces are pierced by small holes in the canvas showing only dark beyond.

+ Click image to enlarge
Marc Leone. Carbon and Crust #19, 2009. Mixed media, 60x72in. Photo Courtesy of the artist.

The volcanic ash in the mix for the two works from the Mighty series produces an over-all lighter effect. Their square shapes enclose circular compositions. One is like looking into a womb crowded with new life; the other suggests a spiral without actually being a spiral. Expansion is somehow implied.

The raised horizontal in #17, already mentioned, looks man-made. It seems a rough imposition on the delicate, almost blossom-like reliefs of the surface. Number 21 is rife with texture contrasts: wood is smoothly gouged in upper areas while across the middle wooden splinters form cross-hatchings that are the opposite of smooth.

Visual complexities provide much of the interest here, but it goes without saying that whatever the viewer brings to such works is valid. Leone is Assistant Professor of Art in Drawing and Painting at Northern Kentucky University and has shown widely. He can be congratulated in giving us an exhibition that leaves an important lasting impression. Limitation of options can, surprisingly, expand possibilities.