Converging Storm Systems: The Art of Douglas Max Utter, Justin Brennan, and Clay Parker, at HEDGE

I’m talking to three different artists on three different occasions, but each of them describes their artistry as a kind of unavoidable whirlwind that overtakes them in their respective studios. They are all part of Stormy Weather, an exhibit of their new paintings hanging at HEDGE Gallery from May 14 to June 28, and pose a related question: “What makes the storm brew? From where does your art emerge?”

Clay Parker finds inspiration in content. He “can’t ignore the crazy shit that’s going on,” and his work springs from the daily headlines. Clay himself is a cyclone, relating stories of his younger days when—disgruntled with the gallery scene—he embarked on a career of guerrilla art: posters and flyers for punk rock bands and large-scale murals. While he describes his recent work as “gentler and less bludgeoning”—the effects of fatherhood and a bout with cancer—there’s a palpable yearning for justice in the patterns, rhythms, and black-and-white palette of these darkly comic pieces.

Sitting in his studio, filled with vibrant and dynamic canvases, Justin Brennan’s answer makes complete sense: “Composition. Color.” Perhaps best recognized for his stylized portraits and figurative painting, Brennan has recently been returning to abstraction—non-representational pieces and others with loosely recognizable objects jauntily appearing in circular swirls of color. Brennan is finding joy and ease in allowing structure to emerge from seeming chaos. “Painting feels natural again, sort of free and unobstructed, like there’s an openness to wherever the canvas wants to go.” And to my eye, the playfulness of his brushwork and the luminous quality to many of the new pieces suggest a hard-won calm and clear after a tempest.

Douglas Max Utter’s creative typhoon is more internal. Despite the array of subjects—urban nightscapes, Dick Tracy comics, depictions of storms, and Biblical narratives—all of Utter’s work manifests his unique consciousness. As he describes each painting’s raison d’être, there’s always an element of autobiography, a sense of cathartic processing. He asks aloud: “What is painting for? Is it heuristic?” There’s a sense that his works have not only enabled him to discover something for himself, but that we are now being challenged to work something out for ourselves. “I’m trying to create a presence that can’t be captured in a photo. Do you know the word eidolon? It’s like an idealized specter or phantom.” Fleeting as thunder and lighting, but deeply felt and pondered long after, much like Utter’s imagery.

Each of these men has a way of working that suggests a posture for how to navigate not only the specific historical moment in which we live, but also the general human condition filled with storms of every kind. Art as inspiring and instructive? Imagine that.

HEDGE GALLERY
1300 West 78th Street, Suite 200
Cleveland, Ohio 44102
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EVENTS

Stormy Weather, May 14–June 28