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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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John Orth @ Northrup King Building
Wednesday 12 November @ 22:30:30 |
 by Will Conley
The Northrup King Building smells vaguely of the seed company that once occupied it, but resident painter and sculptor John Orth feels right at home. He grew up in Iowa farm country. There he was surrounded by farming machines and galvanized steel. Later he made use of those elements in his structuralist sculptures.
Take his Wagon Series, part of which is on exhibit in his studio. A wagon and tractor structure in the middle of the floor might be found reflected and creaking about in the middle ground of one of the abstract expressionist paintings opposite, pulling the viewer's consciousness deep into the canvas.
Red Wagon - ink, acrylic, joint compound, on paper, mounted on masonite
Inversely, a wagon in the painting will be instantaneously transported as a wagon right next to the viewer, forcing her to reevaluate the reality she herself inhabits. This kind of subtle conversation between painting and sculpture goes on throughout the studio.
Painting by John Orth
Orth the sculptor is at his best when he remains true to his structuralist roots. Structuralism is the technique of assembling two or more unmodified (or minimally modified) elements to evoke both an aesthetic and psychological experience. (Minimalism differs in that the psychological aspect is nonexistent.) Perhaps the best example of this is Fisher Box #1, in which a rectilinear block of unfinished wood becomes a sprightly torso by way of adding steel piping to form legs, arms and hands. One could easily attribute sentience, a distinct personality or even a new species to the resulting object.
Fisher Box #1 by John Orth - Wood, Steal, 2001
Orth the painter rides a curving fine line between abstraction and representation in his expressionist canvases. He can skillfully recall Henri Matisse's placidly composed figures ("Shama"), Paul Klee's marriage of the mechanical with the organic ("Broken Arrow"), Wassily Kandinsky's eye-popping color combinations and slicing gestural lines ("Cattails") or Jackson Pollock's intuitive action painting ("Blue Figures on Black"). Even Jasper Johns' ineffable presence can be felt throughout Orth's paintings.
Broken Arrow by John Ortho
Orth's expansive works are a rich and varied godsend to the Northeast Minneapolis arts scene. They exude a passion and a life force.
Cattails - Acrylic on canvas
See more of John Orth's work, plug his name into the search engine at http://www.mnartists.org. For a more personal introduction, schedule a visit to his studio by calling him at 612-706-0435.
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