Fred Stonehouse's "Dope" exhibition proves addictive
Review by James Auer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, August 27, 2003
Irony of Self-Absorption, Social Anaylsis Makes "Dope" Addictive A bracing dash of humor and self-parody leavens the mixture of anguish and self-pity that infuses Fred Stonehouse's latest paintings, on display at the Tory Folliard Gallery. The pictures, alternately amusing and perturbing, provide viewers with a sad if pithy commentary on our troubled time.
Stonehouse, a West Allis resident whose work is owned worldwide (think Madonna and allied showbiz biggies), has a knack for combining folk-art simplicity with medieval mysticism. In person he's blunt, funny and forthright, a big man with a big talent. In paint he's a "Dope" (the title of this of beat show), addicted to self-analysis and art making. The result of all this obsessive effort is sometimes baffling, often beguiling, invariably provocative.
The mixed-media images, shown singly and in combination, are as idiosyncratic as they are perceptive. A wide-eyed, lozenge-headed fellow whose lips have been stitched shut sheds a great, glossy tear. Another guy, wearing a dunce cap, is inconsolably sad. A masked figure in a friar's robe absconds with a big sack of cash. Equally involving and convoluted are Stonehouse's virtuosi riffs on earlier images, from a well-worn banner advertising the long-defunct Wisconsin Theater to a schoolboy's scribblings.
Here Stonehouse makes use of his mordant wit and acute sense of visual irony to upgrade the commonplace and update the archaic. Blending a guerrilla-style graffiti attack with Old Master-type draftsmanship, he layers time and flattens space, creating erratic, eclectic markings that bring the carnival midway into the art gallery - and vice versa.
Stonehouse's craftsmanship is equal in quality and volume to his compulsiveness. He abhors an unused square inch of canvas and seeks - and finds - the universal in the midst of the mundane. It all adds up to an eerily effective solo show by one of Wisconsin's more original - if quirky and downbeat - fine-arts visionaries.
That Stonehouse's fervent, fevered imaginings are paired off against the fastidious still-lifes of the self-taught savant Patrick Farrell only underscores the exhibit's many ironies.
William Nichols
