Deborah Oropallo Art In America Review

Deborah Oropallo's Atypical Archetypes

by Chérie Turner 03/25/11

Deborah Oropallo's "Tale Spin" at Gallery 16 in San Francisco is a big, bold show of female fairy-tale characters and other alluring archetypes—Snow White, Goldie Locks, the French maid and the Catholic schoolgirl, among others. Each of these collaged pieces amounts to an almost life-size full figure or portrait, comprising layered pieces of sheer material, each with a part of a figure printed on it. The figure is made up of about 10 sourced images, sourced from costume websites, which are assembled and mounted on paper to form a single woman. Gas masks and bondage accessories also appear-these are characters facing today's world.

The 56-year-old, Berkeley-based Oropallo addresses each new body of work, as a series, distinctly different from previous work. "It's not just searching for the new; it's building on the old," Oropallo told A.i.A. during a recent tour of her show. "As a painter you are painting on the shoulders of everyone who came before you, and all of the work you have seen and made in the past 30 years—that's in every piece."

In 2009, she made the "Wild Wild West.Show," an exploration of cowgirl imagery. The 2008 "Guise" series, featured in a solo exhibition at San Francisco's de Young Museum, comprised prints that melded 17th- and 18th-century male portraits with images of women modeling lingerie.

In this latest work, Oropallo deftly updates age-old tales, a theme Oropallo has treated previously. The "Guise" series demonstrates the similarities in poses between her subjects, begging questions about portrayal of power and how it differs between the sexes. Fortified (2011) shows an adult Rapunzel. With her braided hair tied like a rope-ladder down the front of her body and shiny black gloved arms encircling her head, this modern woman is going to protect and save herself.

Uniforms and costumes are deployed for their relationships to gender and power. The interest stems from Oropallo's childhood, she explained, including memories of her uncle's grand presence in full Navy garb, as well as her experience wearing the traditional blue-and-green uniform to Catholic school for years.

Oropallo grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey, and started making art at a young age. But it wasn't until she started the fine art graduate school program at UC Berkeley, where she earned her MFA, that she got her first formal art training, studying under esteemed Bay Area Figurative painter Elmer Bischoff. Shades of those early self-teaching, however, continue to be visible in her work today.

"I actually think of paint-by-numbers paintings as the original conceptual paintings... They have a prescribed beginning and end," said Oropallo in an interview for her 2001 midcareer retrospective at the San Jose Museum of Art. "This has been in my work since I was a kid. I copied things out of how-to books, always using this type of methodology."

Oropallo's work is structured according to a modular, graphic, Pop ethic. She used to often work with silk-screened images or patterns, all sourced from photographs. For the 2003 series "Replica," she arranged repeating depictions of duck figurines for Spill, a toy suburban tract house for Free House. For Oropallo's 2005 "Stretch" pieces, she digitally pushed, pulled, and stretched, images to the verge of being unrecognizable. What remained was their contemporaneity.

DEBORAH OROPALLO : TALE SPIN

Installation views of Deborah Oropallo's new show TALE SPIN. The show consists of a group of twenty-two new pieces, equal parts painting, printmaking and collage. Oropallo uses these techniques to construct radically composed portraits of imaginary woman. As source material for these compositions, Oropallo draws upon her intrigue with early traditions of children's fairy tales. Fairy tales were moral plays meant to scare girls into being good. These portraits embody the complexities of girls/women, their submissive/dominant roles, and touch on their corresponding thematic costumes.

We are not having any trouble in our department despite what you’ve heard

Here is a fantastic glimpse into our friend Jonn Herschend's film. It was made while in he and Tucker Nichols were in residency in Copenhagen.

http://jonnherschend.com/projects/welcome-to-den-frie-videoinstallationperfromance/

"This piece was created for the exhibition entitled Koh-i-noor, in January of 2011 in Copenhagen. I was in the Copenhagen’s Artist in Residency (CPH AIR) program during this time and decided to create something that would change over the course of the exhibition. It became a site specific fiction, starting with an apology video (Part 1), which introduced the characters only through text, and then a performance in the space while we were shooting, and finally the promised video (Part 2)… see below for an excerpt.

The show’s theme involved chaos and I wanted this piece to appear to be a promotional video that Den Frie had commissioned. It needed to look and feel real. I also wanted it to be specifically for the Danish people who would come to see the show. So I began working with the translation as an element of further confusion in the guise of clarity."

Tucker Nichols In Copenhagen

I'm in Copenhagen on the invitation of Jonn Herschend and Koh-i-nor, a Danish art collective,
for an exhibition at Den Frie Museum.




In Copenhagen all your needs are met

everything is made with intention

















you will find astonishing sandwich spreads


















and distinguished headwear






































Den Frie is a special place

















maybe the nicest galleries I've ever
been in


















Of course, I chose to make work in the less glamorous parts
of the museum

Sometime I question these decisions


















I was planning to do text pieces on all the windows
in the lobby of the museum.






















but I had been making all these dot drawings back in SF and then I was
noticing how often you see dots in a grid here


















maybe it's a lego thing.


















They use dots to communicate things
in the subway without words.
Enter the train here.



















this side for going up



















haven't figured out what these ones meant yet




















don't bump into the glass

















eat this


















So, I decided to make vague advertising messages
using colored dots.
























Outside


























going in























Stairs leading up to the kitchen























directors office


















where they post press clippings

















broadcasting dot messages as if they meant something




















like it was urgent

















as it turns out, to people in Copenhagen, this actually means
"keep christiania free", the nearby anti-establishment commune area
that has it's own government and laws
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/freetown_Christiania


















I'm going there tonight to understand
what I'm supporting


I also made this bulletin board piece
in the conference room


















a map of sorts using the dots and grid
language

















like a bulletin board at the university where people speak
this graphic language of dots and grids.






















But, mostly it was an exercise
in futility of symbols, no matter
how many you put there.



I told the director it was an attempt to help
them with their future strategy and fund
raising plans


Someone put the floor cleaner in front
of it and I decided to leave it there























UPDATE:
So Christiania is a magical land and it
was true what they said about the three
dots.























The upper label translates to "your opinions and
habits are protected"


even the handstamps for the jazz club is
in on it























Shhh, the older woman said as she drew the dot on
my hand promise not to tell anyone the code.



Update 2:

the next day at the state museum I run into
this security guard whose logo really confuses
me.

These Are The People In Your Neighborhood

On THURSDAY January 20, 6-9pm, Gallery 16 will attempt the improbable.

In our left hand we will present a fantastic new exhibition of prints by artists Amy Ellingson, Stefan Kirkeby, Shaun O’Dell and Inez Storer. While those balls are in the air, our right hand will attempt the Worlds Largest Booksigning in the history of mankind!

On the evening of January 20th we will release the long awaited book,
These Are The People In Your Neighborhood. The book chronicles the seminal
years of Gallery 16’s innovative exhibition space and publishing program.
Over 70 artists are included and all are invited to participate in the book signing.
Scientists tell us this collection of talent in one location will create enough energy
to change liquid to gas.

Book Release:

These Are The People In Your Neighborhood chronicles the seminal years of
Gallery 16’s innovative exhibition space and publishing program in San
Francisco. The gallery was founded in the early nineties by artist Griff
Williams. At the time of the gallery’s founding, San Francisco was on the
verge of the dot com boom and the Bay Area was at the center of
technological innovation. At this nexus, Gallery 16 and its companion fine
art press Urban Digital Color began a remarkable and groundbreaking
project. The marriage of art and technology that defined the business
relationship between Gallery 16 and UDC also came to define a new and
pioneering concept in art funding.

The book includes essays by Maria Porges, Glen Helfand and Mark VanProyen.
Hardcover with 228 full color pages, the book features over 70 artists
including William Kentridge, Mark Grotjahn, Rex Ray, Xylor Jane, Arturo
Herrera, Jim Isermann, Michelle Grabner, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Deborah
Oropallo, Harrell Fletcher, Shaun O’Dell, Darren Waterston, Libby Black,
and many others.

For additional information, please contact Vanessa at Gallery 16,
415.626.7495 or email vanessa@gallery16.com

WHERE COLLABORATION ENDS:

Kenneth Baker

The title of Brad Killam and Michelle Grabner's show at Gallery 16 prepares us for levity: "Collaborating With Michelle Grabner Isn't as Much Fun as You Might Think It Is."

And the pieces the couple - who are married - have produced together suggest collision as much as collaboration, though they are famous for beyond-the-studio doings such as the artists residency program, they have hosted for a decade in Oak Park, Ill.

Grabner's paintings and silverpoint drawings on gessoed canvas follow strict programs: radiating or gridded lines, staccato spirals that can make a circular canvas resemble a braided rug.

Killam's sculptures, such as "Blast Double" (2010), bring to mind things such as clotheslines, hanging lamps and bird feeders as readily as they do the mobiles of Alexander Calder.

Yet in their simpler collaborative pieces, such as the two-titled "Head Gear" (2010), Grabner and Killam evoke a tension between sensibilities respectively centered on studio practice and on seeing grist for art in the street or backyard. Nothing here suggests they can't inhabit the same person.

Griff Williams at Sonoma State University

Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam

Gallery 16 is thrilled to welcome artists Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam back for their fifth show with the gallery. "Collaborating With Michelle Grabner Isn't As Much Fun As You Might Think It Is."

Grabner and Killam are artists and founders of The Suburban, an important exhibition and project space operated from the couples home in Oak Park, Illinois. They recently celebrated The Suburban’s ten-year anniversary. Since January 1999 they have worked with over one hundred and twenty artists including Luc Tuymans, Joseph Grigely, Martin Parr and Tony Feher. Can I Come Over to Your House?, a book about its first decade has just been released and will be available at Gallery 16.

The exhibition will consist of new paintings and silverpoint drawings by Michelle Grabner with sculptures and mobiles by Brad Killam. Michelle Grabner’s paintings and silverpoints index the passage of time. Created with lines, marks, ticks, points, and dots, Grabner’s compositions are simply organized, accumulated, and sequenced, thus leaving virtually no space for the imagination. Killam’s installation of sculptures made from found objects focus on finding the aesthetic qualities of art in ordinary materials and studying the transformation of a functional object into something that causes viewers to regard it as artistically interesting.

Cliff Hengst at Gallery 16

Cliff Hengst working on a mural for his new show at G16.

by Kenneth Baker

Zecca rules at 16: Bay Area artist Alex Zecca parallels Gonzalez in having found a procedure he can push to limits that only he may ever visit productively.

Zecca systematically rules on paper thousands of lines in colored inks. As they intersect and add up, they generate effects reminiscent of Op art at its subtlest, and occasionally suggestive of phenomena such as aurora borealis, lens flare or the color blur in a film or video of something streaking past.

Op art ran its course quickly (except in the hands of Bridget Riley) because viewers could sense too easily the involuntary nature of the optical responses it sparked. Zecca has brought his work to a pitch of complexity where we cannot tell how much control he has over what we - or even he - will see in a finished work. In this respect, his art has a deeper affinity with that of Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) than with Op.

Each show of Zecca's work leaves a viewer wondering "How can he top this?" The latest is no exception.

Rex Ray at Sharks Ink

Rex Ray is spending the next two weeks working with master printer Bud Shark on a new print edition at Sharks Ink in Lyon's Colorado. This is the first edition Rex has done with the press, we are very excited to see
the results!

Here are some images of the
prints in progress.

A Conversation with Photographer THOMAS HEINSER

Überblick: A Conversation with Photographer THOMAS HEINSER
Thursday MAY 13, 6-9PM

The gallery hosts a celebration and conversation with artist Thomas Heinser on Thursday, May 13, from 6-9 p.m. Music by Art Khu Trio and special guests, lager and links by Let's Be Frank follow the interview with the German photographer.

Translated as “over-view or "view from above,” Überblick explores the beautiful and graphic intersection of man, steel, sea, and land as surveyed from above. A monumental and ongoing project, the Heinser's photographs include views of some of the world’s most captivating bridges and structures, from Lisbon and Millau to New York and San Francisco.