Andrew Masullo: Recent
Paintings
Joan T. Washburn
20 West 57 Street, New York, N.Y., 10019
212-397-6780
June 3 - July 23, 2004
By BENJAMIN
LA ROCCO
Andrew Masullo 4084
(2003)
oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches
Courtesy Joan T. Washburn Gallery
COVER August 20, 2004: 2067 (2003), oil on canvas, 30 x 24 inches
The extraordinary thing about Andrew Masullo's current show at Washburn
is its variety. In a period in which painters are constantly categorized
as abstract or representational, geometric or organic, hard edge or
painterly, Andrew Masullo exhibits a group of recent paintings which
refuse to be categorically any of these. His paintings are correspondingly
uneven, yet compensate the viewer with their audacity, exuberance and
inventiveness.
There are patterns to this inventiveness. Masullo's color choices remain
pretty constant often relying on bold reds and straight whites as ground.
Against these he works in a regular set of yellows, blues, greens and
hues. The paintings' surfaces are heavily textured. This is one of the
mysteries of the work, for the texture almost never corresponds to the
image, the form of which resides in the thin skein of paint that is
the paintings uppermost layer. There, strange blobs that call to mind
bowling pins and baby rattles share space with a more classical geometry.
The forms often flirt with figuration. In two cases, the artist goes
so far as to add tiny arms and legs to his geometry, a distressing decision
the only merit of which is perhaps its flagrant willingness to attempt
something different. Otherwise, these tiny appendages distract.
The strongest paintings in the show are both direct and poetic. "4099"
and "4085" are two. Their number titles, like all those in
the show, are another of Masullo's mysteries. In "4099," colored
diamonds and squares hang in red space anchored by a dark diamond in
the upper right. In "4085," spindly globular forms in pink,
yellow, orange, black and blue echo one another diagonally across the
painting's surface. These forms look like balloon animals, a fitting
association given the carnival mood of all Masullo's coloring. In both
paintings, the artist exhibits a gift for easy and adept placement of
forms.
Packed end to end in one small room of Washburn's three, the strong
paintings share cramped wall space with the weak such as "4100,"
in which multicolored cloud forms feel not adeptly placed but thoughtlessly
crammed together. There is no relationship of form to ground in this
painting as no ground is visible. Neither is there a change in scale.
There is just the one form, repeated to fill the picture plane. Across
the way hangs "4073." It is quite clearly a big black Christmas
tree ornament with little red arms and legs. It is set on a diagonal
against its white ground and its presence in the show is a nuisance.
For all its unevenness, and in part because of it, Masullo's recent
paintings are aggressively engaging. This is a seductive quality for
the viewer and an effective one for the artist. Whatever he might lose
due to a poor decision, Masullo regains in his willingness to take a
risk. Such carelessness as the artist shows seems requisite to the inventiveness
that is his strength.
Benjamin La Rocco
is a painter and writer living in Brooklyn
