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Columbus, Ohio USA
Art: Elizabeth Ann James, Columnist
email eannjames@gmail.com
January 2008
Return to Homepage www.shortnorth.com
Columbus, Ohio USA
Art: Elizabeth Ann James, Columnist
email eannjames@gmail.com
January 2008
www.lizjamesartscene.blogspot.com
LIZ JAMES ART COLUMNS
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Visit Art Columns 1999-2003Rick Akers
A Walk In The City at Sharon Weiss Gallery
Train Yard 24x24 in. “A Walk In The City,” an exhibit of about 15 oil paintings by Rick Akers, is showing at Sharon Weiss Gallery through January 31. I say “about 15” because I previewed the show on a Thursday, and by Friday night a large new canvas had been added!
Schiller Park
City Lights knocked me out. We see the Olentangy River, the Broad Street bridge and the tall buildings of our own skyline. It could be somebody else’s skline – but it’s ours. As painted by Akers, the urbane, the modern, has become exciting and lyrical. There are no hot reds or blatant orange and yellows here. Yet, Rick’s fast brushstrokes flash below the bridge and, via a different mode, toward the sky. The composition of the painting is solid. Purples, blues, lavenders, greens, whites – a skyline becomes a bouquet. Impres-sionism is for now. Better hurry, somebody with a penthouse or a corporate office will surely buy City Lights.
Tall, good-looking Rick Akers lives in Groveport and spends as much time as possible outdoors doing what he likes to do best, painting. In his artist’s statement Akers says he is experimenting with tonalism, a color system and theory that is similar to the gradations of chords and harmonies in music.
Akers knows how to delight his viewers, yet his painterly esprit evades sentimentality and nostalgia. An Afternoon in Schiller Park is a delight. Two almost- miniature young women have spread a white quilt on the grass. They’re modestly swimsuited, enjoying the day under a big yellow umbrella sporting a ‘20s touch. The trees, the sun, the grass and the margin of Rick-blue sky, form a lovely dance. In the background, the sun hits a white building in just the right place so everything works together. Akers says he wants to bring his viewers “into the painting, to allow them to feel that they are in there that moment.” Nature is never still; he captures the wind, the sun, the “tilt” of scenes that to an ordinary person seem to stand still. And that is especially true of another Akers’ hit, Train Yard.Train Yard
This work exemplifies the grandeur of the familiar. It’s a guys’ painting, yet I loved it. Again colors are muted: yellows, tans, olive greens, dull creams, browns. How can these hues be exciting? We find two or three uncoupled cars. A narrow roadway runs to the side. A broad sweep of motion animates Akers’ mundane plain. Or plane. The long low buildings rest on sand or gravel. It’s a trainyard without a train. The telephone poles and their wires tilt. The horizon tilts into an almost invisible watertower. There may be no wind. Yet, Akers uses a believable, slightly off-kilter perspective to excite us. Austere in content, this painting is alive!
Topiary Gardens
In Columbus Topiary Garden, Seurat’s green and bushy picnickers have lined up facing the pond. The grass strokes are luscious. This is one of Akers most popular paintings and it provided his postcard image. In Repose, the same scene, Columbus’ famous topiary garden, has gone wide screen: the garden is revealed in all its strokey glory. The sun is hot and the picnickers huddle under a tree, gaze longingly toward the water. Akers has imbued the liquid water with the shimmer of Monet and the glimmer of Seurat. Impressionism lives.Short North Awnings
Altogether a familar view: the dull orange of a brick building glows in an enviable light.
Akers can master light, over and above the average painter. Ed Shuttleworth, another artist represented by Sharon Weiss Gallery, likes Akers’ paintings too, and rightly admired the dramatic and rather abstract painting The Plaza.
Rick Akers studied at the University of Dayton under Brother Joseph Barrish and Terry Hitt while receiving a Bachelor of Fine Art in Commercial Design. He considers himself an impressionist, and rightly so. He’s a man for all seasons, painting his wonderful and skilled impressions for Now. Giotto understood the blues and Reubens knew them too. Rick Akers is a blues painter par excellence. What’s more, each Akers’ painting is accompanied by a short Bible verse.
“A Walk In The City” is Rick Aker’s ninth solo show at Sharon Weiss Gallery. He has exhibited in Barth Gallery in Columbus; Stellar’s Gallery, Ponte Verde, Florida; Arts in Work Spaces program of the Cultural Arts Commission in Upper Arlington; Dogwood Galleries, Lexington, Kentucky; Rosewood Gallery, Kettering, Ohio – he recently won Award for Excellence in their all-Ohio Landscape show “The View.” He has been juried into the Ohio State Fair art exhibit several times, and the CATF (Columbus Aids Task Force) Art for Life auction each year, winning the People’s Choice Award in 2002.
Rick is an adept, unassuming, and brilliant painter. For those of discernment his canvases should not only bring joy but may likely prove to be a solid investment.
Note: at Rick’s opening on December 7, art and conversation glistened. Dane Terry, a very young keyboardist, did a terrific job playing blues, jazz, rock, just about everything, and it was a real swell night. Kris Worthington’s delicate and bright fabric art is a scene stealer at Sharon’s. Check it out!Sharon Weiss Gallery is located at 20 E. Lincoln St.
Hours are Thursday through Saturday, Noon to 4 p.m., Sunday 1 to 4 p.m.
Call 614-291-5683 or 451-8165 or visit www.sharonweissgallery.com© 2008 Short North Gazette, Columbus, Ohio. All rights reserved.
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