Gallery Review II

The Vox Populi’s latest exhibitions feature members Anita Allyn, Josh Rickards, and Linda Yun. Among these three artists, painter, Josh Rickards, lets his imagination run wild in Do Unto Others Then Run Like a Mother. These recent paintings continue Rickards’ ongoing interest in people of popular culture and everyday life. Characters such as a young Bill and Hillary Clinton immediately jump out at viewers with their rosy bulbous noses, clothed in heinous 70s garb. Prominent snouts appear throughout most of Rickards’ portraits- some slightly phallic, others quite direct. Rickards explained his nose fetish at the Vox’s artist talk, as a reference to 17th century Dutch portraiture. These allusions to paintings such as Shrovetide Revellers or Pieter van der Brocke by Frans Hals, are not immediately grasped. Rickards’ paintings negate movement or tactile allure. His characters are flat and linear, embracing static stature and stillness-quite the opposite from popular Dutch bar scene subjects. In some paintings, the background becomes a separate entity- jarring colors within bold patterning or repeated geometric shapes- that compete with the characters’ presence. The characters seem to be chosen arbitrarily, though Rickards’ personal interest and technique make each painting comical, quirky, and a little disturbing. Renderings of his subjects- from the Yeti (a swamp monster legend from the Florida Everglades) to Sly Stone, from the creator of Esperanto to Bill and Hillary Clinton, are not flattering. Whether it in the characters’ bulging noses or other misshaped physical features, Rickards goal is not to create the ideal, but to highlight imperfection and the surreal- and how we as a society react to this representation.