A Brief History of Physics and Goya Masterpieces: Howard Podeswa
Beginning with personal history, the themes in Howard Podeswa’s recent series of paintings expand in one direction to Dante’s multi-layered Inferno, Art History, personal anxiety and existential speculations about the end of time, and in the other direction towards natural disaster, astrophysics and Stephen Hawking’s quantum theories. The format of the exhibition A Brief History – titled after Hawking’s book “A Brief History of Time” – at Artscape’s Koffler Gallery is concentric. In the central space and facing each other are his master works “Heaven” (2015) and “Hell” (2013). “Hell” is an enclosed circle swirling with fierce car burying, people engulfing waves like an epic Turner shipwreck. Skeletal and monstrous faces appear from the blackened, smoky background surrounded by guns and teeth. The work is composed of three panels forming a triptych.
David Podeswa, Hell (detail, one panel of a triptych), 2013, oil on canvas
“Heaven,” on the other hand is painted on one complete, large panel. Floating across the white space are small circles, bubbles, constellations or portals into beautiful dimensions. For the most part, the images encircled by white paint are abstracted details of what may be larger landscapes. Surfacing from behind white paint encircle the scenes as though to imply distance. The two year difference between “Heaven” and “Hell,” from one all consuming dark circle (or black hole) to a constellation of vibrant scenes insinuates the liberation from a dark fixation back into the world.
Howard Podeswa, Heaven, 2015, oil on canvas
Around the central space are five works titled “Study for Hell” in which the sources and details for “Hell” are more explicit. In “Study #1,” the figures are from a nightmarish carnival lead by an empty-eyed ringmaster. “Study #3,” is the tar-black cave of a bat-eared, skull-topped spider, and “Study #4,” seems to be a rendition of a natural disaster. Observing the studies in relation to “Hell” as portrayed by Podeswa and Dante, they not only feel like thematic layers of fear and despair, they also bring up relations to a process of grief.
Howard Podeswa, Study for Hell #1 (detail), 2013, oil on canvas
Howard Podeswa, Study for Hell #3, 2013, oil on canvas
Howard Podeswa, Study for Hell #2, 2013, oil on canvas
Acting as bookends to his studies are two small, untitled works, one across from the other. Painted in 2014 one work resembles a crumpled up ball of black paper on a white surface and the other, from 2015 resembles a dark tunnel with a shinning light at the end. Both inspire further metaphor of loss and hope. At the front of the space the only acrylic painting “Watching Goya’s Colossus in my Sorels” makes the most direct Art Historical statement and personal cameo. “The Colossus” (controversy of authorship aside) is documentation of suffering during Spain’s war of independence. Colossus is missing from the work, but as the largest figure with his back turned to us, Podeswa in his winter gear seems to walk towards the crowd of displaced huddled people, perhaps joining their pilgrimage. His presence in this work allows for his presence throughout the space. Not only are Podeswa’s references accessible and layered, the curation also successfully reflects the celestial duality of his subject including both the spiritual and scientific.
Text and photo: Alice Pelot
*Exhibition information: January 14 – March 27, 2016, Koffler Gallery, Artscape Youngplace, 180 Shaw Street. Gallery hours: Tues – Fri: 12 – 6, Sat & Sun 11 am – 5 pm.