The endless gaze in Martin Honasan's art

In literature we always say the author is dead, a convenient and highly questionable concept really that allows the reader a pretense of reading only the text, ignoring as much as possible the notion of the writer as center of truth. In reviewing art, it still seems like a contradiction to do an interview with the artist in relation to a new work; always this means falling into the trap of making him explain himself. This is what’s working against Digging in the dirt, an exhibit that’s interesting enough to talk about extraneous to who the artist is – or what that name holds. What’s in a name, when you’ve got some art to look at really, and portraits that already demand a conversation? This is the work of Martin Honasan. The first thing that strikes you is the breadth of the portraits that are here (and the fact that it’s in the midst of a busy mall’s hallway): from huge canvases with heavy acrylic paint to small canvases with sparse almost pen and ink sketches rendered in watercolor, from dark almost dank colors to bright yellows and reds and stark whites. Even just the heavy hand in the large canvases vis a vis the lighter hand used for the smaller work is unique in itself, especially when one considers that across these portraits are the eyes as focal point, no matter how it’s rendered, regardless of the size of the work. In the bigger canvases, the eyes survive not just darkness (“Substitution") but also sparkle and brilliance (“Lights"). In the latter in particular, what’s extraordinary is the eyes’ survival despite everything before it, where it pierces through the distraction and playfully gazes at spectator. Heavy strokes and layers of texture are also what the eyes survive in “Now I Know in Part" – where a sheen of yellow and orange allow for an amount of serenity despite the darkness that envelops most of the canvas. In his work with bodies, Honasan ably renders the eyes more alive, even as these also establish a seeming disconnect between head and neck and body.

“Grace" is a beautiful rendering of a woman’s body facing the sky, who might be looking up to it, but also could be falling from it, legs folded at the knee, feet pointed, arms leaning back, almost in surrender. The beauty of this image lies not just in the woman’s form, but also in the white film that covers her body, the red flowers falling with her, the blue of the backdrop. Her face is clear of disturbance but also of want and need, eyes half-closed these allow still for a gaze that’s focused on what is up there, regardless of whether she is going towards it or away from it, even as her body seems extraneous to what the eyes see. The distance of body to sight is even more apparent in two of the large canvases. In “Turning" a man’s body seems left behind by the movement of the head, looking to the right and away from the spectator. The gaze takes him towards an object, calm and collected, if not excited, forgetting there is body, and leaving in place of the head a mess of bright red. In “Hear The Noise" blues, yellows and grays allow for noise to be less about color and more about the lack of form, from which a woman’s body and head emerge, the latter almost disappearing to the side of the canvas, the nose practically at its edge, the eyes blank and staring into space. There’s a clear disconnect between the quiet in the woman’s face and her body as it suffers through the noise that’s in the rest of the painting. This dynamic between noise and faces, as well as the survival of the gaze, are in the smaller works too, done in watercolor with a skillful light hand that’s altogether surprising given the large works in acrylic. It’s in the smaller canvases that the register of the gaze is diverse and distinct despite, and precisely because of, the noise that it pierces through. For work like “The Rescue" and “Out Of The Wilderness" faces emerge only after a second look, where it’s obviously the noise that holds the portraits captive, betraying a seeming refusal to struggle, as there is power and strength in the survival precisely of the image. In “Golden" “Seated Female Figure" and “Twirling" what distracts from the face is the fact of seeming movement, not necessarily of the figure but of what’s attached to it: big hair, a body captured sideways, or just done with the act of turning, and seemingly moving towards something. Meanwhile it’s in the portraits of women’s faces looking full on at the spectator that Honasan’s light hand fascinates, where the gaze remains crucial even as it is made less distinct. In “Red Earrings" the bright yellow of the canvas is decentered by the dark lips and red earrings, but also by an expression that seems to be on the brink: of speech, of a smile? either of which work at the brightness that’s here. “Rose Quinacridone Face" meanwhile evokes the opposite, in that despite the unexpected pop of pink in the midst of the dark browns, the blood red that drips from the woman’s chin, the same color as her lips, given the darkness of the eyes, looks to be a form of suffering and pain. In “Untitled" black ink on the stark white canvas, twirling strokes that seem haphazard yet are obviously controlled, create an image of a woman forlorn, with a questioning gaze. But it’s from the two images under “Pure" that sadness resonates, with sleek dark red lines drawing shoulders and slender necks, eyes that look past the spectator but blankly at nothing. It’s in this last set of paintings that Honasan proves his sense of control as part and parcel of his creativity, where across these paintings, large and small, in acrylic or watercolor, the image is allowed its own life with as little given it as possible, working with the eyes and its endless gaze. There’s none of the grand gestures here, no need for surprising work, none of the things that make for being called “artist" in this country. This is why Honasan’s work in Digging in the dirt deserves to be discussed. And why his name shouldn’t matter at all. - YA/HS, GMA News Martin Honasan’s Digging in the dirt ran at the YellowDoorGallery until October 23, 2011. Note: Some of the artwork already sold were unavailable for viewing the week following the exhibit opening.