Art Lies, Volume 52, Fall 2006 Page: 92
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DALLAS REVIEW
Regal Row
Art Prostitute
Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe
From a western corner of one of Dallas' larger
commercial districts, Regal Row winds northeast
along a fork of the Trinity River, echoing the path
of a spur of the old Union Pacific railroad that runs
from the city's center to Irving. Many of Dallas' old
ambitions wind up here too. Dozens of hotels and
industrial buildings line both sides of a four-lane
boulevard, its grassy divides punctuated by mas-
sive utility poles, until the road finally ends at Harry
Hines-another boulevard with its own notorious
ambitions.
As an exhibition title, Regal Row offers more
than an imprimatur for a collection of new work
by Evan Benjamin Harris, Marl<k Nelson, Will Rhoten
and Joseph Stein. It also imparts a distinctive sense
of place for Art Prostitute's gallery, which moved
earlier this year from its incubator in Denton to a
new, grownup space in Dallas' Deep Ellum district.
As a collective narrative, Regal Row does what
many Art Prostitute shows have done in the past.
It transcends the dualities preoccupying so much
postmodern art-insider/outsider, drawing/ges-
ture, art/commerce-and advances the idea that
many voices can be heard speaking as one.
Granted, a few entrails of postmodernity
remain. First, the artists and their virtuosic drafts-
manship reflect our culture's seemingly incurable
impulsivity. Second, as with many other exhibi-
tions Brian Gibb and Marl<k Searcy have launched
within Art Prostitute's walls, this show sustains the
graphic artists' affinity for artifice. In many ways,
the pages of Art Prostitute, the duo's innovative
publication, manifest on the walls of the gallery.
Works aren't simply framed and hung in thought-
ful ways; they are arranged, abutted and adorned.
Presentation remains classically balanced, with
rococo elements on the walls repeating themes
present in each artist's work.
By placing classically trained and self-taught
artists in close proximity, the gallery continues
to advance the theoretical argument that all art-
ists are self-taught to one degree or another. They
represent those who have a compulsion to draw,
whose work is graphically informed and who tell
stories through deep and personal symbolism.
Evan Benjamin Harris, an earnest artist, uses
the vernacular line of the tattoo. In Barnacles and
Butterflies, the swirls of a woman's hair match the
energy of ocean waves, but the palette is somber
and his characters sanpaku. The whites of theirI
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IMMABOVE & RIGHT: Art Prostitute, Regal Row, 2006
Installation views, Art Prostitute
Photos by Matt Hawthorne
eyes show on three sides, which reveal a dark fore-
boding in his worldview. Similarly, Joseph Stein
mixes up the occasional visual reference to Paul
Klee, the style of the Dutch masters and the chiar-
oscuro perspective of the Renaissance. In eleven
works hung as a unit, Stein's narratives are graph-
ically united by a pouting central character who
looks a little like a cross between the artist and
Porky the Pig. It's surely self-deprecating work if
seen as self-portrait, since the character cannot
do much more than be in the moment as in Cold
Water on a Hot Grease Fire. But a Dark Ages
moment it is and, like his other works, deeply and
deliciously subversive.
Marl<k Nelson's symbolism is rich yet sparse
and personal, with hints of neo-surrealism in his
bright, diverse palette. His narrative themes hark
to youthful drawings often thematically preoccu-
pied with death. Mother and Daughter, the only
titled work among his twenty-one pieces on view,
takes a broader look that is clearly tempered by an
emerging awareness of time and the lack of control
over one's destiny.
On the other hand, once Will Rhoten defines
space, he clearly must fill it with doodles. Whilesome of the individual gestures in his many inkl<-
on-paper drawings are clich-arrows, diamonds,
spider webs, skull and cross bones-the aggregate
effect has a certain grace and lyricism, which ele-
vates it. Rhoten may be the most compulsive of the
four artists in Regal Row. By putting works of these
four artists together, Searcy and Gibb continue
pulling their own narrative thread through folds
of contemporary expression-one that weaves an
amalgam of folk art, outsider vernacular and the
gestures of classically trained eyes and hands.92 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/m1/94/: accessed March 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .