By
Phil Leckman
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Student-run gallery showcases 'departure' from pair of UA artists
For the casual visitor, the works on display in "Headfirst and Luminous," the latest show opening tonight at student-run gallery Carbonbase, may not seem out of the ordinary.
But for those who know the artists - Albert Chamillard, a fine arts junior and gallery co-owner, and Josh Hagler, graphic design junior and Wildcat illustrations editor - the exhibition could scarcely be more radical, said Megan Asker, a Carbonbase co-owner.
"People that are coming to this show that have never seen Albert's work before - I wish they could know everything before they see this, appreciate that he's painting, appreciate that he's using all these colors, all these things that he's going out on a limb for," said Aker, a Pima Community College student.
"You're going to come, and you're going to see all these cool paintings," she added, "but for me it's really nice to see him take this new medium and go with it, try to get this out."
Although the ethereal paintings of children Chamillard exhibits in "Head First and Luminous" scarcely suggest it, the show marks one of his first major forays into painted media.
"My typical stuff is very controlled, very based on working from models," said Chamillard, a self-described "linear-type drawer" who concedes his emphasis on painting in this show is "very far out."
"I usually work pretty tight, with a real reductive method," he explained. "I'm pretty into the controlled drawing type thing."
The vastly different work he prepared for "Head-first and Luminous" is both an experiment and a new direction, Chamillard said.
"I don't know what's going to happen next - I could go and keep doing this and get away from drawing altogether" he said. "Definitely I've learned a lot from painting that I'll apply to drawing."
The subject matter of these paintings, however, was sparked by developments in his personal life, said Chamillard, who explained that his emphasis on children in mysterious surroundings was sparked by his wife's pregnancy.
"This whole show for me is about pregnancy and birth and being a parent - the fears and the good things I feel about that too," he said.
"It's sort of mysterious what goes on in the developing brain, how you entertain yourself in the womb," he mused. "I imagined these worlds that maybe we create."
On canvas, Chamillard evoked this metaphysical state through the use of sparse, almost dreamlike compositions and a luminous color palette unlike what is found in nature. A triptych titled "Before, During, After," for instance, depicts a blue-skinned girl playing with a sock puppet in front of a red curtain on a blue-and-creme colored parquet floor. These supernatural colors, he said, are "really supposed to evoke a different world, a different plane."
In the sense that his current artwork is different from his work so far, Chamillard said he felt a certain kinship with Hagler, his co-artist in the show.
"It's a departure for both of us, the type of work that we're doing" explained Chamillard. "We both come from the same place, with strong draftsmanship, really linear style, and this show is a fork in the road that we both took."
In many ways, this point of departure is the only thing the two artists' current work has in common, said Carbonbase co-owner Lee Street, an art education senior.
"Like Albert said, they're both at a jumping-off point, and so a lot of the emotions that actually spurred the work are similar," Street said. "If you're looking for similarities, that's probably the one because visually they're pretty drastically different."
Indeed, a marked dichotomy exists between the two artists - Hagler's work, a collection of dark and frenetic collages, stands in stark contrast to Chamillard's luminous, colorful canvases.
This contrast creates tension, but also harmony, said Pima Community College student Joel Meltzer, also a gallery co-owner.
"I think the way they play off each other, between Albert's relatively calm paintings and Josh's very jam-packed and really chaotic not movement, but freaking out - I think a balance is there," he said.
Aker agreed, suggesting it is this tension that makes the show work.
"The thing is they're so different," she said. "Albert's work is really sparse - anything would be sparse compared to these, but I'm glad we chose Josh instead of just a room of paintings. I think it's going to be a really good show."
