DOYLE GERTJEJANSEN: Mapping Pangaea    Dec 1 - Dec 31, 2008

Is it possible to balance gravitas and levity, conceptual sophistication and unabashed sensual delight? Yes, is the answer Doyle Gertjejansen's paintings and sculpture unequivocally demonstrate. With their juxtapositions of smooth and nubby textures, contrived and spontaneous gestures, deep Renaissance perspective and flat modernist space, the works in Mapping Pangaea superimpose jaunty, Stuart Davis-like rhythms against the impulsivity of Abstract Expressionism and the witty, self-referential pastiche of the postmodernist era.

For more than three decades, Gertjejansen, chair of the fine arts department at the University of New Orleans and recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in painting, has been a fixture in prestigious private, corporate, and institutional collections around the United States and the world. His works are richly nuanced meditations on art history, the relationship between authentic and metaphoric experience, and the human compulsion to superimpose order upon the chaotic amorality of nature. The paintings are born of a fascinating dualistic process that begins with the artist making arbitrary marks on his canvases-sometimes with his eyes closed to heighten the sense of Dadaist spontaneity-then layering structural motifs on top, pivoting between randomness and rigor until the dischord between the two coalesces into harmony. The completed artworks open up their thematic petals like lotus flowers, revealing fresh interpretive possibilities upon each viewing. Their robust conceptualism notwithstanding, these are lushly colorful works that offer the eye no lack of voluptuary pleasures.

An immaculately sanded 16-foot fiberglass sculpture entitled Frames of Reference will cap the show, offering a smooth, minimalist counterpoint to the gestural and chromatic maximalism of the paintings. The sculpture features an interactive sound component, which expresses the artist's enduring fascination with the dark mysteries of nature and the methods by which we attempt to fathom them.