I’ve seen lots of paintings in the last few weeks: three juried group shows and an exhibition at the Long Beach Museum of Art. It’s been good; it sent me off on my current realist exercise and it’s been sort of encouraging. I feel a happy understanding of the language of paint. It is good to let the varied work speak to me in all its crazy dialects; to bring new story lines into the eternal internal narrative about technique, subject, palette, brushwork, surface, history, culture, love, death … Beyond critique or comparison to my own projects, it is just good to see the decisions painters make, the revelations and the disappointments.

Of the 90 or so paintings I’ve seen recently, here is one of my favorites. At 28 She Discovered She Had a Vulva by Todd Davis. I saw it yesterday at the California Visual Artist group show at the airy 2nd City Council gallery. I am thankful Todd gave me permission to post this little jpg of the painting, but it can’t do the actual painting justice. In fact, most of my favorite things about this painting are invisible in this image. First of all, the original is large — 48 X 30″ — and the surface is lush, laden with knife-loads of white paint, sometimes scraped away to reveal the dark ground, sometimes painted on, or sensitively incised to create the figures. So, in person, it is at once painterly and graphic — a sensation enhanced by the restrained and rich color palette. Yeah! That’s the way I like it.

Plus: It’s a very nice nude. The subtle modeling continues the dance between drawing and painting, between 2-D and 3, between being in and being on the background. She is anonymous, provocative and beautiful to look at, a L’Origine du monde.

And: I like the icon-ization of the ubiquitous, lowly-yet-jewellike pigeon, a theme that runs though the artist’s current work. From his website:

Todd’s work explores the ambivalent relationship between the pigeon and the public — sometimes aggressive, sometimes indifferent — and evokes, whether blatantly or furtively, those same dynamics that play out between people. The pigeon is a parallel to what is decidedly “other,” those around us who have been overlooked, loathed or merely tolerated. Todd is drawn to urban wildlife, environmental issues and underdogs of all kinds. Pigeons, in his mind anyway, embody all of them.

I don’t worry much about cracking the cypher of a painting. I don’t worry too much what a painting is “about” as long as it is also “about” paint — which this one certainly is. I avoid reading prosaic “artist statement” placards at exhibitions. In the moment of meeting a painting, I am less interested in what the painting means, than what it means to me. Thinking about the pigeon in At 28 She Discovered; perhaps any shocking discovery kills something, decides something for us, and ambivalence is at last extinguished. Or maybe only the death of one part of ourselves can offer us insight into the Big T Truth. Maybe the pigeon is an extraneous penis. Maybe the story was something the artist overheard in a bar … maybe … maybe it doesn’t matter; I like this painting.

Another fine Davis painting, Shopping Cart — which shares much with my favorite — took second place in this juried exhibit. You can see it here. Both are nicely priced around $2000. I got the distinct feeling that these will soon be bargain prices for Todd Davis’ work and I wish I had the extra cash to snag one. Then I could enjoy “the find” permanently.