A person who can sit through a Survey of Art lecture set to a Leonard Cohen soundtrack while reading The Waves may be well equipped to navigate Emily Sundblad’s Adolescent Ocean. Personal history intermingles with cultural and art iconography, forming a tide of debris that floats to the surface in this show of collage-like, collective memory-dreams.
A viewer’s first impression is one of carefree abandon in the works’ predominantly warm, cheery palette. There is a surface charm and whimsy, but a closer reading reveals more complexity. The appearance of a couple of opium pipes provides a clearer indication of the nature of these dreams, perhaps the wistful hopes of youth dotted by interrupted innocence.
In her mashed-up picture puzzles, the artist paints a planet on which the Little Prince can gaze down on his favorite bourbon, unaware of Batman’s looming shadow in the opposite corner, hovering over one of Lucian Freud’s dogs. (Mommy.)
A series lines the back wall, rendered on clunky, cloud-shaped panels, an especially apt format for the exhibition’s themes and compositional style. The floating quality of the imagery is enhanced by the lack of corners; in contrast, the more traditional rectangular canvases feel notably flat.
There is an ’80s painting about painting aspect to the show in a Salle meets Stettheimer style. The artist’s intentionally naïve touch is offset by sophisticated color relationships, and her use of pure pastel over canvas creates an electric effect. In one painting, The Wedding, the exuberant palette is juxtaposed with somber content. The institution of marriage is cast in a dubious light via a bold, complementary-colored composition, where an Edvard Munch-ish couple stands in a peaceful if leafless wood, all dressed up for their big day. But the feeling is more funereal than celebratory, as from our distant viewpoint, the costumes seem eerily hollow and filled with deathly emptiness.
In one of several works sharing the title The Adolescent Ocean, a sickly green cloud spawns one of a couple of Manet’s Olympias, a historical icon suspended between the poles of notoriously ‘free’ female and objectified muse.
In a lone nocturne, another The Adolescent Ocean, darkness reigns, but it’s alive with the same flora, fauna, and playful elements found elsewhere and is reminiscent of a Dutch natural history painting. In opposition to the night, the subjects seem lit from within. Their dancing about could distract from a ship on the horizon, engulfed in flames, moments away from sinking.
A small side room houses a third, The Adolescent Ocean, by contrast, a relatively conventional seascape. Dark and churning with variable weather, it may be a metaphor for individual tumult. Facing these waters may incline one to keep a toe in the sand.
Despite undercurrents, a persistent sense of renewal runs through the exhibit. Flowers bloom in springtime abundance, and among the artifacts washed ashore are Odilon Redon, eye-like conch shells. Hold one to your ear, and you might hear whispers of past, present, and future with hope and possibility entwined.
Emily Sundblad The Adolescent Ocean at Bortolami June 6-Aug 8
39 Walker Street, New York @bortolamigallery
About the writer: Peter Schroth is a Brooklyn-based artist. @petereschroth