Art-world cynics have predicted the death of figurative painting for decades, yet it has withstood an array of contrary contemporary movements and not only survived but arrived at a point now where
it is flourishing anew.
Colorado is enjoying a figurative resurgence of its own with the emergence of such talents as Stefan Kleinschuster, Wes Magyar, Jenny Morgan, Julie Puma and even Tiffany Kennedy, an art student who made a splash last fall with an ambitious solo show at Pirate.
The question, of course, is which ones, if any, will separate themselves from the pack and go on to distinguished careers. Working hard to that end is Magyar, who has had at least one solo exhibition in Denver every year except one since 1999.
His latest such offering, “The Barest Trace,” concludes Saturday at the Plus Gallery. It offers the latest evidence of the growing self-assuredness of this young painter, who earned his bachelor of fine arts degree in 1998 from the University of Colorado at Boulder.
But as highly skilled as Magyar obviously is, his style still seems to be somewhat in flux, his take on the figure not fully coalesced.
Are his canvases distinctive enough to stand out among those of other painters with similar approaches?
In each of his five large-scale paintings, Magyar zooms in on his sitters’ heads, placing them against muted, blank backgrounds. He constructs the images with interlocking, prismatic swipes of paint that are so carefully placed that the works have a stylized even slightly mannered, quality.
To evoke the faces, Magyar uses an array of pinks and other flesh tones that are never totally objective. But in the case of “Semblance,” a 5-by-8-foot portrait of two people, the pinks are so exaggerated and self-conscious that the colors become distracting.
He is more successful when his color choices are more objective, as they are in the show’s stunning 6-by-5-foot centerpiece, “Facade.” Particularly noteworthy is the artist’s striking treatment of the folds and shadows across the subject’s vividly blue shirt.
Another young Denver realist painter, Robin Schaefer, has been featured in a number of group exhibitions since she moved to Denver following her 2001 graduation from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore., but she has largely flown under the radar so far.
Her handsome solo show, “Introverted,” running concurrently at Plus with the Magyar exhibition, should quickly change that.
In these six strange, unsettling yet unquestionably beautiful still-lifes, Schaefer combines an imaginative choice of subject matter with a well-refined technique. Although these images are realistic, they avoid the cool exactitude of the hyper-realists.
Four of the works are devoted to images of potatoes, which have sprouted wan, ungainly shoots that have a vaguely anthromorphic quality. A good example is “Introverted-Pursuit,” a 4-by-5-foot oil on canvas, in which the potato’s sprouts look like useless wings.
In this series, Schaefer finds considerable power in contradictions. She has invested decidedly un-heroic objects with a heroic quality, and her sometimes jarringly bright studio lighting makes the natural objects seem oddly unnatural.
Perhaps even more potent, because it incorporates a clash of the natural and man-made and an accompanying undercurrent of violence, however subtle, is the aptly titled oil on canvas, “Disconnect.” It consists of a lusciously rendered orange stuck repeatedly with spears of rolled white paper.
Realism is alive and well in Denver, and these two emerging artists are definitely practitioners to watch.
Fine arts critic Kyle MacMillan can be reached at 303-820-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com.
Wes Magyar and Robin Schaefer
THROUGH SATURDAY|Two solo painting exhibitions|Plus Gallery, 2350 Lawrence St.|FREE|Noon to 6 p.m. today and Saturday (303-296-0927 or plusgallery.com)
