R
e f l e c t i o n s o f t h
e S p i r i t
Paint
reflects light and colour, and good paintings spark reflection.
They engage our sense of wonder, the play between imagination
and understanding, pushing us to make sense of relationships between
images, between the viewer and the artist or the work, between
the work and society, and between ourselves and the past. Costa’s
paintings invoke our spirits, and bring us to the realm of reflection
without presenting a deadening resolution.
We
might first be struck by the grand scale of his paintings and the
extraordinary skill of their execution. Large full-length formal
portraits are traditionally reserved for distinguished persons of
accomplishment and status. Master painters were commissioned to
commemorate notables of the Church, aristocracy or politics, but
here we find a rare talent portraying the anonymous eroticism of
“Urban Girl” or the tawdry prostitution of “In
The Window.” The monumental presentation of these humble,
mundane figures compels us to wonder what value the artist places
on his subjects and what he hopes we will discover.
Some
viewers of “Captured,” his first solo exhibit at Engine
Gallery, found it unsettling and its portrayal of women offensive.
In 1870, there was a similar response to Edouard Manet’s “Respose,”
a portrait of a middle class woman lounging in a white dress; many
were shocked by his break from convention in allowing the subject
to remain anonymous. Then it was enough that she should have no
name. By portraying women of questionable character, does Costa
wish to reveal to us the shift in our social norms? Does he build
her up to tell us how far we have fallen? Or does he wish to draw
our attention to forms of beauty too easily dismissed? Is this an
intentional response to master works like “Repose,”
Theodore Roussel’s “The Reading Girl,” or Ivan
Kramskoi’s “An Unknown Lady”? Certainly Urban
Girl’s regard of calm, sensual, almost haughty self-assurance
is reminiscent of the Kramskoi’s Lady as she passes us in
her carriage. The play of reflection has begun.
Having
caught our eye, we stop to consider the purposefulness of his work,
and measure the commitment of the artist by the mastery of his technique,
and we soon find our scrutiny is richly rewarded. With broad confident
brushstrokes he is able to capture the subtle variations of sinew,
skin tone and light. His technique ranges from tight, clear renderings
of a hand or a shoulder to bold, rough handling that seems unfinished
and fades into the background. In this juxtaposition of clarity
and light with roughness and shadow he not only shows us that while
he is able to exercise refined skill he will not be constrained
by it. Instead he uses it selectively to pull our attention to one
element or another, giving special attention to the hand and belly
of “Urban Girl,” the straining, sinewy shoulder and
bonds of “Captive 3,” or the horse’s head and
girl’s thigh in “Mistress of the Saddle.”
The
work is purposeful without a definitive purpose. We sense the harmony
and expression of the artist’s spirit, but he does not offer
utility, and there lies the beauty. He leaves room for play, and
he does so both in form and content.
He
eschews formal draughtsmanship of realism and assumes the free-handed
approach of the Impressionists, allowing his application of paint
to convey feeling. And instead of contextualizing his subjects with
background details of a studio, a park, or an apartment, as did
the Impressionists, he sets them against the textural thick brushstrokes
and gaping holes of canvas characteristic of abstract expressionist
paintings. He combines both schools to realize a sense of spontaneity
and action and belie the possibility that, in this impersonal mass
age of reproductions, this is anything but an original work. This
sense play and authenticity is enhanced by the violent slashes of
the pallet knife across the still-wet canvas, which further assert
the impulsive creativity of the artist.
In
his imagery, Costa dispenses with the vocabulary of conventional
Western symbolism and invites us to engage our imaginations to find
the truth of his subjects – a truth that is made more present
through the sensuality of the painting than would be apparent if
they were described in words or if we stood in their company. He
constructs his own language and through it we are given a means
to reflect upon the relationships of the figures.
In
“Neighbours”, we find the curious situation of a monkey’s
leash zigzagging between the grips of a boy and girl who gesture
at one another while staring out at the viewer.
In
the diptych “The Rope”, a bald, robed, barefoot priest
pulls a rope and draws a battered screen to hide a strong, equally
bald, bare-chested ruffian who faces us defiantly in black jeans
and boots.
In
“Dancing Shoes,” a woman finishes tying the laces of
her high heel shoes.
These
three paintings allude to Costa’s earlier “Knots”
series, where he evokes the vitality and energy of competing forces
through his paintings of rope knots tautly binding sheets of canvas.
In
“Neighbours” and “The Rope”, he adapts the
illusion of vital tension in “Knots” to heighten the
complexity of the relationship between people.
There
are great forces at work in the clashing natural sensuality of Urban
Girl and the cold rationalism of her modernist chair, in the brute
force of the captive and restraining knots that bind the captive’s
hands (“Captive 3”), and in the proud, powerful nobility
of horse’s face and the taming power of the riding crop held
by “Mistress of the Saddle.”
Costa
is both of the Western tradition and beyond it. He uses the techniques
of impressionism and abstract expressionism, and the strong contrast
of sharply lit bodies against deep shadows we might attribute to
Caravaggio, and yet his work is distinctly contemporary and fresh,
building on tradition without being limited by it. Walter Benjamin
wrote, “The uniqueness of a work of art is inseparable from
its being embedded in the fabric of a tradition.” Costa’s
achievement is the manner in which he accepts this truth about art.
Instead of appropriating or quoting the works of the Old Master’s
and then affixing a contemporary vitality, Costa gives us contemporary
vitality with the skill of an Old Master. Quietly, without open
referencing, he calls upon tradition then transcends it through
his selective application of its elements to his particular experience
of the moment.
Captured
by the provocative narrative and refined technique, the viewer is
summoned into the reflective play of imagination and understanding.
In his more recent work beginning with “Jump,” Costa’s
sense of play assumes a breathtaking optimism where play itself
becomes the subject. With his portrayal of a boy leaping through
a kinetic orange-hued space, Costa seems to be announcing his own
release, discovering the joy in his own play, and inviting us to
participate in yet another experience linking us to the universal.
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