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REVIEW Transitions Land forms and architectural drawings make their way into Geoffrey Pagen's combinations of ceramic rectangles. BY KATE BONANSINGA |
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Ceramic Wall Reliefs by Geoffrey Pagen Elizabeth Leach Gallery 207 SW Pine St., 224-0521 Ends Nov. 14 In 1979, when he was just beginning his career as a ceramicist, Geoffrey Pagen lost a brother. During the previous year he had been the artist-in-residence at Contemporary Crafts Gallery in Portland and had visited Japan and Guatemala. In Asia Pagen was inspired by contemporary sculptors' innovative forms; in Guatemala the Mayan architecture at Tikal made the deepest impression. The somber tones of most of the ceramics in both of these countries, combined with his grief over the death of his sibling, steered Pagen's production of primarily dark, earthy, textured vessels, some shaped like sarcophagi. This began to change in 1990 with the birth of Pagen's son. New life and brightly colored toys scattered around the house influenced the artist's choice of colors. His 1990 wall piece that graces the entrance of Portland State University's library, sponsored by a grant from the Oregon Arts Commission's Percent for Art Program, represents the cusp of this transition. Composed of tall, narrow rectangles in mostly black and turquoise, it points to the bold, primary colors that Pagen has preferred in the more recent past. It also exemplifies his now signature format of combining squares and rectangles into abstract wall murals. His newest, untitled body of work, the first in three years, includes a few glossy-surfaced pieces, coated with commercial glazes, that are much like his work of the mid-1990s. Untitled #219, for example, is four bright-blue rectangles, butted in a grid, with geometric shapes of red, yellow and black emerging from each of its corners. It is reminiscent of the canvases of Dutch artist Piet Mondrian, who eventually limited his vocabulary to the three primary colors and two primary directions (vertical and horizontal) to achieve the "purest" results. But clay has a weight and texture that stretched canvas lacks. In addition, the results are much more difficult to control because of the unpredictability of the firing process. Therefore, the restraint and stillness so effective in Mondrian's work do not translate to Pagen's. It is opportune, then, that Pagen has departed from an exclusively primary palette to one that also accentuates the earthiness and texture of clay. Pagen began by creating several 10-inch squares and 10-by-15-inch rectangles, all of them about 2 inches deep. For at least one he used a sculptor's chisel after the initial firing to achieve a raw, serrated surface resembling a raised-relief map. For others, he applied self-formulated glazes and etched simple line drawings of geometric forms into the dried glaze before a second firing. One is reminiscent of the profile of a mountain range, another of an aerial view of pivot agriculture. Other sketches look like working drawings, hearkening back to both Pagen's childhood in California with his architect father and his undergraduate course work in architecture. With few exceptions, Pagen then combined the individual elements into multi-tiled assemblages: squares with squares, rectangles with rectangles, squares with rectangles. Not only does each tile support a successful composition, but it also combines with other elements to create a more complex visual structure. The best pieces in the exhibition unite glossy squares with ones that have rougher surfaces, some of them raw clay. Though their contrast is strong, their balance is delicate. Pagen's method of artistic production lends itself to commission work because he is able to produce as many elements as a given space will permit. Tokyo Forum Restaurant, the Xerox Corporation in New York and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines in Oslo, Norway, are just a few of his big-name clients. Pagen's decision to put commission work aside in order to focus on creating work for this show may have instigated his change in palette: The artist was completely free to make personal choices instead of accommodating the needs of someone else. Not only are the combinations of natural clay with glazed elements more formally pleasing, they are more distinctive. They separate Pagen from his teacher, Jun Kaneko, whose trademark is bright, patterned surfaces. (Pagen studied with Kaneko at the Rhode Island School of Design, where he received his M.F.A. in 1975.) Intermingling the natural and glazed clay is a small but significant risk, especially for a mid-career artist who has found a niche with color. The departure in effect takes Pagen back, since he is now infusing the character of his earliest work into that of more recent pieces. It may indicate more and greater changes to come, especially if he permits himself time to complete the transition, to apply his considerable technical skills and formal abilities to new combinations of elements and ideas.
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