Artificial Light

      

Patch Somerville

at The Front

I just wanted to get out of the house yesterday. One of the first things I noticed about the day was the sound of rain and the color of the light, blue-grey and reminding me of the Northeast. I met my friend Adam at The Front. In the second gallery there was a show of three light works. I would have said neon but one of the gallery members who was sitting in the gallery (not the artist) said something about it being a new technology. Or maybe LED but don’t quote me on that. I couldn’t refer to a list of works because I was told there wasn’t one. There was no information about the show at all actually but the gallery sitter gave me the name of the artist: Patch Somerville. I have met him on a couple of occasions so I knew that he is a figurative painter and that this work was a departure from the last work of his I had seen. 

Two of the three pieces, one yellow one blue, were simple forms that looked like rectangles in one point perspective hung at picture-on-a-wall height. (This installation choice may relate to the artist’s painting background. The pieces would have looked different, referencing objects more than images had they been on the floor, low on the wall or in a corner.) These two pieces were attractive, but I didn’t really get them. Maybe titles would have helped. I was more interested in the largest piece, a construction of cool white light in the shape of French doors.

I did not really have enough room to look at it. Hoping I did not sound like a jerk I asked the guy who was working on a laptop if he would mind relocating for a moment so I could take his spot on a bench directly across from the piece and as far back as one could get in the small gallery. I was glad I did. Vantage point had a significant effect on this work. I had the small room to myself for a moment. The feeling of the piece changed slightly depending on whether I was standing or sitting.

Now here is the tricky part: where does an artwork end and our experience of it begin? When I write about art I am writing just as much about my idiosyncratic experience of the work, specific to my past, the light of the day, the weather, my mood, all of it. I liked this piece a lot. But I liked it partly because I had not left my house for hours, because of the rain, the meaning of inside/outside on a day like this, at at least least two potent memories of French doors. Finally, and in no small way, I liked this piece because it reminded my of an almost forgotten Rainer Maria song, Artificial Light. When I saw the French windows, I heard in my mind the opening of the song, a jagged chord progression, some minor chords–this intro always gave me a small ache in my gut (or whatever you call two inches below the solar plexus) to hear it. I sat there looking at these windows with all of this baggage and so if you ask me if the artwork was good, I would say I it was good to me. 

I go to art to feel something. This is a tall order in sometimes numbing days. If I have to bring something to the mix to feel it, that’s fine with me. (and all the invisible arcs are caught in my head…)