The Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition
(BWAC) launches its 14th annual spring art show at the Red Hook
pier on Saturday, offering an opportunity for the public to see
the work of over 300 local artists. One of these, Russell Mehlman,
is among the borough’s premier primitive artists.
Mehlman’s paintings document everyday life, blending the ordinary
with the surreal. His stiff, clumsy figures appear wrapped in
ennui, with lifeless limbs. Yet the faces have a dreamlike emotional
power. The streets, living rooms and kitchens, in which the figures
are posed like dolls, are vibrantly composed.
Mehlman’s scenes are meticulously recorded, yet the artist paints
primarily from memory. In "Window Scene" (pictured),
a gouache on paper that will be auctioned to benefit the BWAC,
Mehlman depicts an anxious-looking cat on a windowsill, and behind
it, a colorful street scene. Mehlman himself is the figure in
the lower right hand corner, "trying to get the cars to
move."
"It’s not really my window," says Mehlman, "but
it makes me think of Atlantic Avenue near the Heights."
Nor is the cat Mehlman’s.
"I do a lot of scared cats. That’s how I feel," admits
Mehlman. "Now I have no time for cats that look at me. Cats
are very needy [I’d be] working on something, and I’d suddenly
get the feeling that someone was staring at me. And there were
these two cats, just looking at me. So now, I don’t have a cat."
A Mehlman painting depicting two women smoking, "Cigar Bar,"
will also be shown in the BWAC exhibition.
"The Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition Pier Art Show
14: Transformations" will be on view Saturdays and Sundays
from 1 pm to 7 pm, May 13 through June 18. The show is located
at 499 Van Brunt St. at Reed Street in Red Hook. For directions
and information visit www.bwac.org
or call (718) 596-2507.
– Rebecca Migdal
