Jeff Filipiak reviews Jeff Aeling's recent exhibition at the Tory Folliard Gallery, featuring paintings of Wisconsin's North Woods for www.susceptibletoimages.com:
In a world where humans have transformed the entire planet, and where many artists have grown used to focusing more on method than subject, is there still a place for landscape painting? Artist Jeff Aeling argues that landscapes do play a necessary role – to reflect the "intimate connection to the natural world" which all humans have (as he says in his artist statement).
This exhibit does an efficient job of presenting recurring themes of Aeling's work; he loves to focus on waves and skies, and his paintings of the ocean and of Western scenes represent those interests. (The exhibit also includes paintings of the North Woods where he uses a different style.) In a gallery talk he gave at the opening of this exhibit, Aeling explained that he seeks to avoid depicting humans and evidence of them in his paintings. Older landscape paintings used the human element to provide 'cues' to the viewer as to how to place themselves into the painting. Aeling’s paintings indeed avoid humans, and evidence (at least obvious evidence) of their transformations of nature.
"Wall Cloud" allows us to see Aeling's methods of perception. The painting is horizontal, and about eighty percent sky. He does not feel the need to 'ground' a viewer in the landscape by emphasizing what's physically closer to us, and more familiar – in fact, the immediate foreground here feels a bit blurred. His heart appears to reside in engaging the haze of things harder to grasp. A cloud dominates this painting, in both size and liveliness (the cloud feels more alive than the trees in the painting do). A sentimental landscape painter might try to give us a scene that we associate with happiness, a sunny day. Aeling can show us what we can appreciate in something we normally ignore or dread.
It’s hard to make out borders in clouds, details of them – they shift, they blur into what’s around them. Aeling emphasizes the role of processes, things that are changing, like the whirling waves he enjoys surfing. His work gives one a 'feel of the sky', not exact impressions of it. He is effective at showing us the nuances of such transitory states, like shadings of sky between clear and cloudy, like the depth and shape of a cloud. These works deal with different levels of light; he can make us savor a cloudy day, but can also create light in a sunny-day portrait when necessary. For instance, "Island and Cloud, Clear Lake, Wis" effectively captures the crisp clarity of a bright day in the foreground; while away from the center, he still plays with shadings, with over a dozen clouds illuminated to different degrees. This emphasis on sky is a very appropriate gesture for someone who has spent as much time on Western plains (images from Kansas and New Mexico are included in the show) as he has, in a world of horizons. So much of the action there, so much of what one can see, is in the sky. The plains are often seen as boring, but it’s as if Aeling learned from them to look up and pay careful attention to depicting the drama in the sky.
In his Wisconsin works, however, the results are somewhat different. Focusing only on the sky, while in the middle of a forest, would suggest a lack of openness to the representative qualities of nature in that area. Aeling goes for verticality in some of his works here (a rare tactic for him), with his canvas following trees rather than the horizon line. "Aspen near Plum Lake" demonstrates his ability to develop art appropriate to different regions. Unlike the forest paintings, it does not direct one's eye upward, with a sense of immense distance. Instead, I found myself feeling somewhat confined – then my eyes moved back and forth along tree trunks, savoring what existed within the space. That painting also shows one of his points of emphasis, reddish colors, in the peach sky that sneaks through the trees. (He includes red highlights on almost all of his frames, functioning as somewhat of a signature.)
Will Aeling’s paintings give you a sense of intimate connection to nature? I think he makes it possible, given his sensitivity to diverse places and to the feel of sky. His paintings can force us to confront nature, with few traditional guideposts, obliging us to make our own sense out of the clouds and storms. But since his paintings lack a human role, one could come away from these paintings wondering if humans belong in these places; it can be hard to see connections, particularly on a level of action, when no humans are present. There is no North Woods 'culture' here. His attempts to come "as close to the experience of having seen it as I can" are quite different from Tom Uttech's. (Quote taken from Aeling's gallery talk at the opening reception, on October 19.) Aeling tries to keep all traces of human subjectivity out, while Uttech sees them as a necessary means to capturing lived experience.
Jeff Aeling's work can expand your vision, and can make you look UP to see what's there. After leaving this exhibit, you might do as I did, and head to the lakeshore to find a horizon to enjoy – and find you can now notice shades and patterns in the sky that you usually do not.
- Jeff Filipiak Jeff Filipiak teaches humanities at MIAD and Lakeland College.
William Nichols
