Artists "Review" Artists: Gail Vollrath on Daniel Mafe

The Artists "Review" Artists Project was launched on June 30, 2008.  Below is a "review" of Daniel Mafe's work, Untitled, written by Gail Vollrath.  Daniel provided the second jpeg, an image of Untitled (indigo), as well as a brief response to Gail's "review."

Daniel currently resides in Brisbane, Australia, and Gail lives in Washington, D.C.

If you would like to participate in this project, please email me at jtkirkland [at] gmail [dot] com.

             
untitled
acrylic, pencil, collage on paper
48" x 36"
2008

The "Review"

Phantasmagoria: Sight Unseen

Coincidently, I had started a book of Walter Benjamin writings at the time I received this image for review.  Phantasmagoria, as redefined by Benjamin is figural imagery derived from an illusory perception of our culture and inability to term our world.   As with considering any work of art that is reproduced, it is difficult to separate what I want Untitled to be and remain open to what it may be.

Under the carefully placed web of bird-dropped white paint on the surface of this work appears layers of unself-conscious, highly energetic mark making and as the description reveals, collaged pieces of objects.  Built from the inside out, the artist could require that some information be present at the onset of the process.   I am reminded of and want to assign this work as similar to painting over photograph much like the works of artists such as Anselm Kiefer and Adrian Piper, among others.  Though differing thematically, this artist takes the activity of careful covering as gravely intrinsic. 

The gutsy crimson, no wimp lives here, marks on the right side suggest a unique skeletal build loosely bonding a group of elements in its wake.  The spherical objects of differing size, density and color move in kinship rather than opposed along a vein red lifeline.

Tottering the brink of painting/drawing, Untitled is large in scale which probably and happily aided the artist in exerting the necessary body movements to create this wonderful entity that may have the power to suck you in (in the Gestalt meaning of the word) if you dare proximity.  The visceral application of paint, overall rhythm and dark whimsy of this work on paper is perhaps exemplary phantasmagoria.

By Gail Vollrath

     
Untitled (indigo)
Acrylic, ink, graphite on paper
122cm x 86cm
2008

The Response

Thank you Gail for the careful attention you put into this thoughtful and probing piece of writing. On a personal level it opens up for me a different view on formerly familiar terrain. I have never considered phantasmagoria before and yet it is a wonderful and accurate way to hold the thinking and making that I do these days, the shoe certainly fits! Each work is conceived of as a continuum of starts, each layered over the previous, resulting in a constructed whole that both disassembles itself into a diaspora of fragments, geometric and otherwise, and then moves back again, to reconstruct itself. A phantasmagoria indeed.

By Daniel Mafe

Previous "Reviews":
Pam Farrell on Ken Weathersby
Paula McCullough on Aric Calfee
Lee Gainer on Leigh Waldron-Taylor
Aric Calfee on Paula McCullough
Matthew Ballou on Heather Levy
Giovanni Garcia-Fenech on TJ Norris
TJ Norris on Giovanni Garcia-Fenech
Susan Tolbert on Mary Klein
Heather Levy on Gail Vollrath
Sharon Butler on Matthew Ballou
Mark L. Power on Steven Alexander
Steven Alexander on Mark L. Power
Molly Norris on M. Trigos
Ken Weathersby on Joseph Barbaccia
Sondra Arkin on Susan Tolbert
John M. Adams on Sharon Butler
Michael Paul Oman-Reagan on Brent Hallard
Daniel Mafe on Pam Farrell
Joanna Knox on John M. Adams
John Lucien Grillo on Joanna Knox
Brent Hallard on Lisa Klow
Joseph Barbaccia on John Lucien Grillo
M. Trigos on Michael Paul Oman-Reagan
Mary Klein on Imants Ozers
Richard Schemmerer on Michael Konrad
Michael Konrad on Richard Schemmerer
Jennifer Mawby on Lee Gainer
Lisa Klow on Molly Norris
Bob Barbera on Jenn Figg
Tom Wagner on Kimberley L. Lindsley
Michelle Hunter on Aaron McMasters