Art Lies, Volume 52, Fall 2006 Page: 96
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Al Souza
continued from 111York Times, sheet music, pages of Braille text and
advertisements, cutting a pattern of precise, close
ellipses all over the paper and then layering them
to desired effect. Of course, the flow of original
information is disrupted, but other kinds of infor-
mation seep through-colors, shapes-perhaps
fortuitous juxtapositions of words or images.
The same is true of Souza's puzzle paintings.
Freed from the requirement to form a coher-
ent representational image, the puzzle pictures
allow us to notice additional, different informa-
tion: bright, almost lurid colors, idealized (that is
to say, homogenized) imagery and, again, telling
juxtapositions. The recent work Spunk (2004), for
example, is made up of jigsaw versions of cross-
word puzzles; the word "spunk" sits dead center,
upside down. The composition incorporates three
areas of amorphous white puzzle pieces-inter-
locking borders act as squiggly graphic elements.
These white fields appear to lay atop the underly-
ing puzzle elements, as if some effluent populated
by animated swimming threads has been splashed
on the crossword puzzles' surfaces. One wonders
if this is a pun-commentary on the solitary plea-
sures of doing crossword puzzles-or, perhaps, a
humorous assertion of the vitality of life, the word
"spunk" coming to life, so to speak.
The untitled drawings in Moody Gallery's con-
tribution to the Souza-palooza are quieter, more
meditative works. Most are medium-sized, roughlyfifteen-by-twenty-three inches, though some are
smaller. Most are rectangular fields composed of
horizontal lines contained by crisp, sharply defined
edges. In a number of these, it is evident that a
straight edge was employed to draw the lines,
while a few were drawn more loosely, perhaps
freehand. Color is the other subject of these works,
and six drawings on the back wall of the small,
diffusely sunlit room dominate this understated
exhibit: one reddish orange, another a cool sea
green. In another, the rectangle is subdivided into
an orange and a red square. In some, a line is
etched into waxy oil pastel fields, while elsewhere
gold rectangles are striated with pencil. Nearby, in
some smaller pieces executed with pencil or felt-
tip pen on paper, lines are interrupted at irregular
intervals, creating a sense of precise imprecision.
The tour de force piece is the drawing that intro-
duced the exhibit. On a black ground, darker black
lines are punctuated by impossibly darker notes,
the whole composition suggesting sheet music for
some darkly beautiful nocturne.
The constant in Souza's work is an abiding
interest in the methodical accretion of informa-
tion, and accretion is the mot juste. The grid as
organizational principle seems to disappear in
the '90s, but it's still present; it simply changed
dimensions and became strata. Where the grid's
relationship to the wall is parallel in his earlier
work, it becomes perpendicular in the cut-paperAl Souza, Peaceful Kingdom, 1998
Ink on mixed media
84 x 216 inchesand puzzle paintings in Galveston. Horizontal lines
become layers and vertical axes become shafts
through those layers, mining information formerly
laid out in a narrative.
In an early work at the Art League, a grid of
photographs follows a simple, colorful, abstract
puzzle of tiny blocks as the harmony and form of
pattern disintegrates into increasing chaos, culmi-
nating in actual blocks piled below the grid. Souza
has said that he often sees these grids as revers-
ible, but with The Peaceful Kingdom (1998), one of
his largest puzzle paintings, the march to or from
chaos has resolved into flux. The composition's dis-
parate images of flowers, autumnal vegetables and
New England and European landscapes advance
and recede as your eyes whirl across a layered
harmony worthy of Jackson Pollockl<-a peaceful
kingdom indeed.96 ARTL!ES Fall 2006
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Bryant, John & Gupta, Anjali. Art Lies, Volume 52, Fall 2006, periodical, 2006; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth228017/m1/98/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .