'Tarrence Corbin: Blue Nocturn (sic)'
at Cincinnati Art Galleries
Energetic. Dizzying. Dense. Flat/infinite. Harmonious/jarring. Joyous. Disciplined chaos. And, of course, colorful and hard-edged geometric. Those are some of the words and concepts that Tarrence Corbin's paintings and sketches evoke.
Corbin, who teaches in the fine arts department at the University of Cincinnati, is the subject of a large solo exhibition, mounted by Cincinnati Art Galleries, which is not known for its forays into the contemporary realm. 'Tarrence Corbin: Blue Nocturn (sic)' features the monumental finished canvases that he is well known for, smaller acrylic-on-paper works that are as finished as the paintings, and looser sketches.
Superficially Corbin's work appears to be a purely formal exercise, and the casual viewer might be forgiven thinking they are primarily decorative and eminently suitable for corporate spaces. In Corbin's nonobjective compositions, squares recede in space, becoming distorted as they speed away, introducing some sense of perspective in these insistently flat works. Circles bounce like balls around the canvas leading the eye in a rollicking dance. Ribbons curve, sometimes back on themselves, like symbols of infinity. With Corbin's brilliant color, these colliding shapes create a cacophony, and every note— shape—is played fortissimo.
Although they are delicious as eye candy, the University of Cincinnati associate fine arts professor's paintings are, in fact, very cerebral works.
Corbin's quick and loose sketches provide a view into his intellectual process. They appear to have been dashed off, as if he was trying to keep up with his thoughts. The black, presumably felt-tip pen, contour drawings, sometimes filled in with washes of color, display an energy that he reins in in his finished works —not that they lack energy in their refined state.
The sketch Study in Color and Form #1, undated (as is most of the work, presumably due to the artist's declining health and inability to participate actively in presenting this exhibition), mixed mediums on paper, 19 ½" x 13 ½", reveals much about Corbin's creative process. His notations on the definitely not archival brown butcher paper offer an insight:
"Studio Int. No. I, No, II, No. III." refer to the three black-ink drawings that are stacked like steps on the paper.
Corbin continues,
"These drawings reflect shapes and patterns distilled & abstracted from the interior of the studio - apt.
"-compose-reconstruct
"magnify - Re-arrange
(1) note: Hodgkin"
'Hodgkin' refers to the British painter Howard Hodgkin, an influence that seems tenuous. The brushy and smeared color of Hodgkin's abstract expressionist paintings can only be seen in the few times that Corbin uses the technique in counterpoint to his usually flatly colored shapes. For my eye, Corbin's paintings more closely recall Al Held's in the way both artists play with shapes in space and their shared use of uninflected color.
In this exhibition two subjects have engaged Corbin: place (for example, Horizons #5 and #6, the studies for Imperial Isle, Checkpoint, and even Maiden Voyage) and music. Most of these works are titled with general allusions to musical terms, such as Sinclair Rhythms, The Music of Everyday, and even the title of the exhibition, Blue Nocturn (sic).
However, there are two large paintings—Boog-a-loo Beat, Coltrain's (sic) Journey #1 and #2 (undated, acrylic on canvas, 90" x 70" and 90" x 65" respectively)—that clearly reference their source of inspiration: saxophonist John Coltrane (1926-1967), a seminal figure in the free or avant-garde jazz movement and pioneer of altered chord-progression cycles. Using abstraction and cacophony, a word that can be used to describe both the musician's and the painter's work, Corbin has faithfully translated the aural to the visual in these works.
Playing altissimo, above the upper register for a woodwind instrument and manipulating the sound through variations in air stream, tongue, throat, and embouchure, Coltrane achieved the screaming and screeching sound that led some contemporary critics to call it "anti-jazz."
In both Boog-a-loo Beat paintings, ribbons loop through the composition, sometimes becoming entangled in the myriad angular shapes or threaded through skewed, open framelike squares. Even though some shapes slip behind others, there is no sense of depth. It's all on the surface. Some shapes are decorated with stripes, which could be seen as a reference to a regular, underlying beat. In some, the flat, unmodulated color gives way to brushy strokes where one color is dragged through another, a Hodgkin device, and possibly a reference to Coltrane's unconventional chord shifts. In some of the ribbons that meander through the composition, the color is gently shaded—gray lightening into lemon to blue to salmon and as the ribbon turns back on itself into a dusky lavender intensifying into a near magenta—like the transitory nature of music.
Corbin's work succeeds on two levels for me. The paintings present a puzzle worth unraveling, but are also satisfying on a more superficial one. It's enough to allow the eye to roam over the surface, sometimes accompanying the shapes into space, to relish the complexity of the color, and delight in the energy of the colliding shapes.
'Tarrence Corbin: Blue Nocturn (sic),' Cincinnati Art Galleries, 225 East 6th St., Cincinnati, OH. Through Nov. 12, 2009.
Born in 1946, Corbin received his MFA from the University of Cincinnati in 1975 and has taught at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, the University of Arkansas, and Fayetteville University, NC, as well as the University of Cincinnati where he is associate professor in the Fine Arts Department.
Major commissions include murals for the Montreux Atlanta International Music Festival and Bureau for Cultural Affairs in Atlanta, GA, in 1992, and Sinclair Rhythms for the Sinclair Community College Center for Interactive Learning in Dayton, 2008. Group exhibitions include 'Innervision,' National Afro-American Museum and Cultural Center, Wilberforce, OH, 1998; 'Cincinnati-Kharkiv Invitational Museum,' Ukraine, 1993; '30th Anniversary Show,' Phoenix Gallery, New York, 1988; and 'Contemporary Arkansas Artists,' Metropolitan Life Gallery, New York, 1988.
His work is held in various public and private collections, including the Rose Law Firm, Little Rock, AR. His drawings have been published in American Abstract Drawing, 1930-1987, Arkansas Art Center, 1998; Drawing: A Contemporary Approach," published by Harcourt Brace Jovanich, 1992; and The Art of Drawing, 6th edition," 1998.
Recent honors include the Image Maker Award for Applause Magazine, the Archibald Motley Award for Outstanding Contributions in the Visual Arts from the Mallory Center for Community Development, Cincinnati; and the Donald P. Sowell Award for Arts in Education, Cincinnati.
