Talk about a one-two punch.
Few Denver artists could match the abundant productivity, unwavering skill and expressive power that William Stockman has mustered in striking back-to-back exhibitions in less than 10 months.
The respected painter and draftsman, who left the city temporarily in 2000 and stopped creating art for several years, made his long-overdue return to the local scene in January with a major showing at the Mizel Arts & Culture Center.
Most artists would have needed at least a year to recover from that massive undertaking and produce another body of work, but the ever-prolific Stockman is back just months later with a second substantial show. And it, too, is a stunner.
This latest offering, which continues through Sept. 20 at the ideally suited Ironton Gallery, includes just nine charcoal drawings, but they are all large-scale works, including a diptych that is a staggering 10 feet by 8 feet.
Although these pieces have a visceral impact and presence that Stockman’s intimate drawings simply can’t muster, they nonetheless retain the directness, immediacy and spontaneity of the smaller works, with erasures and other changes unabashedly visible.
His well-honed technique manages to merge deliberate crudeness, such as an awkward line or disproportionate perspective, with more traditional virtuosity for a distinctive look that has a gritty, contemporary feel.
Like all of Stockman’s work, an air of mystery suffuses these selections. Each suggests a narrative and a kind of personal iconography, but nothing is clear or specific. Meaning hangs in the air yet remains tantalizingly elusive.
These drawings range from surprisingly uncomplicated works, such as “Wish List,” in which four circled eyes and a circled mouth float above a loosely rendered head on its side, to the considerably larger and more complex diptych, “Headphone Party.”
If the former works on gut simplicity, the latter impresses with its sheer scale and the intricacy and force of its fable-like composition, with four figures enigmatically perched on the branches of a tree, each linked to the others by a headphone cord.
The most unusual of the selections is the only one with no figurative content — “Untitled Brick Construction No. 14,” which measures 66 by 80 inches. It depicts a brick wall — nothing more, nothing less — and manages to be unexpectedly compelling in its boldly elementary way.
Not all these pieces, though, are equally successful. The multi-element “Treasure Hunt,” comes off as a bit unfinished and clunky, and “Sparkler,” with its kind of super- hero mythology, seems forced.
But, overall, this exhibition is an impressive feat, reinforcing Stockman’s place in Denver’s artistic top tier.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
“Internal Combustion”
Art. Ironton Gallery, 3636 Chestnut Place. An exhibition of large- scale drawings by Denver artist William Stockman. Through Sept. 20. 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Fridays and noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays. Free. 303-297-8626 or .
