Painting Life Gallery Highlights Giarrizzo Exhibit And New Acquisitions
There are two great reasons to visit Gonzaga University’s Jundt Art Museum through Oct. 12. The first is the exhibition “Transmissions, Collisions and Conversions,” a show of contemporary paintings by Wyoming artist John Giarrizzo.
The second reason, hanging in the Jundt’s Arcade Gallery, is the selection of highlights from Gonzaga’s newest art acquisitions: prints spanning several centuries of art and encompassing names such as Rembrandt and Picasso.
The main gallery exhibition, “Transmissions, Collisions and Conversions,” shows that many of today’s artists still follow the paths of their predecessors to develop their own style. While spending time in Italy, Giarrizzo discovered the art of 16th and 17th century Italian master Caravaggio. The powerful impact this had on Giarrizzo can be seen in this exhibition of paintings. Giarrizzo has drawn greatly from Caravaggio’s style, in ways both obvious and subtle.
In his life time, Caravaggio created some of the greatest realist art ever painted, much of it commissioned by the Catholic Church. However, the church was at times repelled and offended by the results, which had masterful technical expertise but a realism that was too close to temporal truths. This was often due to the “street” reality of Caravaggio’s models, subjects often picked from his contemporaries and portrayed in every bit of their humanness.
Like Caravaggio, Giarrizzo has taken figures from the contemporary world and portrayed them in their humanity. Many of these paintings depict scenes from an auto body shop, evoking a sense of Caravaggian ultra-reality that presents the ordinary and imbues it with something quite profound. It is as though, with a deeper perspective such as that found in this art, the everyday realities of human existence can transcend the mundane and mean much more.
Giarrizzo’s more obvious allusions to Caravaggio appear as compositional parallels with many of the Italian artist’s specific works. For instance, close examination reveals that a corner portion of Caravaggio’s “Boy with a Basket of Fruit” appears in Giarrizzo’s “Kenny’s Basket.” Such references are sometimes mysterious, almost elusive, but accompanying the exhibition is a book containing illustrations of Caravaggio paintings that enable the viewer to make a tangible comparison.
The art in this exhibition acts as a window to Giarrizzo’s past experiences as the son of an auto mechanic. The artist seems to be working through personal issues, such as the poignancy of the father/ son relationship.
These issues may or may not reveal themselves to the viewer, but Giarrizzo has provided a personal statement, “Homage to a Mechanic,” to help bring this personal exploration to light. An excerpt from this statement makes his message clear: “Today, I’m painting mechanics and bodymen - an homage to my father and my family in Ohio. Ironically, it has taken me twenty years, thousands of miles, and this body of work, to return to the family business and feel at home.”
The pervasive theme contained in the Arcade Gallery’s exhibition of prints is quite different. Although each print represents a portrait, the similarities are fewer than the contrasts. The prints range from a 17th century Dutch engraving to a 20th century lithograph, differing in era, style, artist and technique.
The variety as a whole depicts the amazing expressiveness that can be captured in the print medium and the broad technical array of options available among various print techniques.
More importantly, the display of 21 prints hints at the ever-growing excellence of Gonzaga’s permanent art collection. This group of prints was selected from the most recent donation by Norman and Esther Bolker to Gonzaga. Dr. and Mrs. Bolker began the Bolker Collection in 1984, when they donated 480 works on paper to the university. Their most recent gift included 14 prints by Rembrandt, nine by Sir Anthony Van Dyck, and others by Whistler, Picasso, Chagall, Oldenburg and more.
The Bolker Collection now numbers over 700 prints and drawings, and creates an impressive resource for Gonzaga and the Spokane community. Indeed, this print exhibition merely whets the appetite for more.
MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Art exhibit Paintings by John Giarrizzo and prints from Gonzaga University’s Bolker Collection will be on display through Oct. 12 at the Jundt Art Museum, 202 E. Cataldo. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays and noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays. (It will be closed Sept. 27-30, an academic holiday.) Admission is free.