Roland Reiss
Unrepentant &
Unapologetic Flowers Plus Small Stories
Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside CA
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| 8. Fleur du Mal II (#621) 2008 Acrylic on canvas 68" x 52" |
*All images courtesy of the artist and Diane Rosenstein Gallery
Article by Cathy Breslaw
Over the course of my life, I have sought out nature in all
its forms including mountains, forests, hills, oceans, rivers, lakes, big skies
and sunsets, across several countries – all with the expressed purpose of encountering
the power and spirit of the universe. I
knew I would find it in these places. As
I walked through Roland Reiss’s Flower paintings(2007-present), these same feelings
emerged –awe, wonder and the spirit of an exuberant artist who wants to ‘show’ rather
than ‘tell’. This is evident in the fact that Reiss
requested that no identifying information be placed beside each artwork. – no
painting titles, sizes, mediums etc that we typically see elsewhere that art is
exhibited. We are left on our own to observe and discover what these paintings
communicate to us.
Flowers are the vehicle which Reiss uses to express
color. ‘Color’ is not an element of his
works, it is the primary language. As a master technician in art-making, these
expressions come across as easily as speaking a native language is to us. Being
in the exhibition space in the presence of these paintings is reminiscent of
southern California skies after a storm when the light is sharp, clear, bright
and fresh. The color combinations are vivid,
intense, glowing and full of emotion. He wants us to feel his joy and to find
our own.
Reiss plays with figure and ground in his compositions –in
most of the paintings the imagery appears to float within the spaces of the
canvases, and in others the ground is implied – where we may see a few flower
pedals sitting alongside a vase. Once again, he wants us to ‘fill in the
blanks’. The context or reference points are often missing. Reiss
also manipulates spaces within each of his paintings. In some, the flowers
appear to be three dimensional while others are simultaneously flat. Collapsing
and expanding spaces add another dimension which challenges what a painting can
be.
Another group of works appear to have vertical structural
supports of stems for his flowers around and within which there are layers of
tiny but discernible images of architecture – skylines of cities, capitol
government buildings, museums, as well as monkeys, dancing people, butterflies,
birds, geometric and abstracted shapes, and more. The imagery floats around
like passing thoughts. Bouquets of flowers become worlds within worlds.
While most of the paintings have flat precisely crafted
surface paint, there is a selection of those with a deliberate pattern of
thick, textured sculptural brushstrokes. Multi-colored brushstrokes also appear
as imagery within others works.
Its as if Reiss is holding a conversation about painting in
his works. He defies convention while
charming us with the amazing range of color variations, varieties of flowers,
imagery and general “eye candy”. The
standard compositions, color relationships, two and three-dimensional spaces,
and the nature of and use of brushstrokes – the traditional tenets of painting - all come into question in
how they are played out.
Another portion of Reiss’s exhibition are the Small Stories - sculptural tableaux which the artist is
widely known for, and which he calls “three dimensional paintings”. These clear
acrylic boxes contain cinematic miniature scenes that play out varying social, political
and cultural scenarios referencing contemporary life, and where it is left up
to the spectator to comprehend.
In the title of Reiss’s exhibition: Unrepentant & Unapologetic Flowers, he addresses the notion of
painting flowers as a disenfranchised subject. In one of the several personal
statements about his work posted throughout the show, Reiss notes that the art
world is generally dismissive of flowers as subject matter. It also goes along
with the notion of beauty as a
simple, trivial, superficial and irrelevant subject in art. Seeing Reiss’s exhibition proves this wrong –
that flowers (and beauty itself) grabs
us humans at a deep unconscious level, one of the spirit – and there is nothing
more important to contemporary society than to lift the human spirit and soul –
and Reiss’s paintings do exactly that.
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| je t’aime en noir (#946) 2016 oil and acrylic on panel 30" x 24" |
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| F/X: In Search of Truth (#46) 1990 Mixed media 24.5 x 24.5 x 14 inches |
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| Unrepentant Flowers: Red (#995) 2017 oil and acrylic on panel 30" x 48" |
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| Sunflowers at Night (#672) 2013 Oil and acrylic on canvas 68" x 52" |
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| Unrepentant Flowers: Starry Blue 2017 Oil, acrylic and ink on panel 30" x 24" |
Great description of the work - makes me want to see the show. I especially like the flowers on black - colors are really extraordinary.
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