Review

Paul Flinders paints the inner emotional glow

Detail from Paul Flinders' "Bon Voyage," part of a new series of black-and-white work opening May 10, 2009 at the Bourgeois Pig in Lawrence, Kansas. A version of this article originally appeared in the Winter 2009 print issue of Review magazine. All artwork images: courtesy of the artist. Click to see paulflinders.com for more information.

Paul Flinders creates emotive works that connect with the viewer on a visceral rather than on a logical level. Standing before them, a viewer might have the sensation of warmth emanating from muted colors and soft light. The works might elicit some distant memory of joy, pain, or love, despite their unreality, which is sometimes cartoonish or evokes the extraterrestrial or primordial. Even some of his direct social critiques make an emotional connection through scenes that are sometimes bizarre or otherworldly, sometimes romantic or absurd.

Paul Flinders, "Ready," oil on canvas, 16" x 20".

As Flinders writes in his artist statement, “Whether in places of heightened joy or despair, there are instants of pure expression [….] I seek to capture these moments and place them in a context that can offer perspective for the viewer.” At least preliminarily, perspective can be elusive when engaging with his imaginative works, many of which are mixed-media pieces with layers of paints and glazes. Many times the effect is uncanny. A twinge of love, or perhaps some long forgotten childhood desire to fly, lingers achingly in Flinders’ unfamiliar world.  He suggests the best way to view his work is to capitulate to it. “While some tilt their heads and squint, trying to align with my viewpoint, it’s when the viewer gives up trying to identify what I’ve made that they can clearly observe it," he says. "I’m not trying to make illusions. I’m trying to be point-blank about what the inner world is seeing."

Paul Flinders, "Flight," mixed media on paper, 24.5" x 18", was part of "Glow" at Third Eye Gallery in fall 2008.

For the Lawrence, Kansas-based artist, a solo exhibition in October 2008 at the Third Eye gallery in Kansas City, Missouri, presented the opportunity to feature diverse works representative of his career up to this point. Some pieces such as Flight or Twenty Four closely evoke a sense of the uncanny, with a single human figure set against muted natural landscapes. In Flight, a night-time backdrop of subdued dark hues creates a dream sensation; the brush strokes and placid expression on the figure’s face conveys the sense of flying within a dream — a collective experience of otherworldliness. The layers of muted colors and warm light of Twenty Four create a hazy effect, like headlights through a fog. (This same hazy glow appears in many of the works, and Glow was the title of this exhibition.) The piece’s somewhat blurry human form, with sad eyes and a pair of antlers on his head, is strange yet somehow oddly comforting, like the ill-defined yet recognizable human forms in a dream. Words scrawled above the figure, “it’s going to be all right,” mysteriously play upon the idea of safety, although simultaneously requiring the viewer to question it.

Paul Flinders, "Oi Lashies," oil on canvas, 20" x 16", was part of "Glow" at Third Eye Gallery in fall 2008.

In other works, Flinders connects more playfully with the inner mind. In Scooting, for example, a bearded male figure rides toward the viewer, the top of a female figure’s head just visible over his shoulder. Wind seems to rush over them, which is conveyed by their swept up hair and by a hat floating away in the distance. The scene departs from reality yet conveys raw feeling — this time, love is reflected in the female figure’s grip on the male figure, her closed eyes suggesting contentment. The oil painting Oi Lashies likewise communicates feeling with an absurdist tone. A girlish figure’s enormous eyelashes act as a perch for a group of birds, suggesting a moment of calm bliss frozen between the blink of an eye.

Paul Flinders, "Free Corporate Libations," acrylic on wood panel, 15" x 60", was part of "Glow" at Third Eye Gallery in fall 2008.

Contentment is also eluded to, but with ironic effect in Flinders’ numerous wry social commentaries. One of these, the graphite-on-paper How to Spend Your Millions, depicts a male figure floating on the water in an inner tube. Again, the piece expresses an instant of “pure expression,” but the grotesque elements of the figure and the title suggest another context for the viewer to engage with the work. The figure’s misshapen curled toes symbolize a warped sense of comfort, his drabness in a blank ocean suggesting a void. The title answers an existential question, showing an absurd endpoint to a superficial corporate life. This same answer might be found in Free Corporate Libations, a brightly colored acrylic-on-wood panel, showing sock puppets in business suits having cocktails, their attention fixed on one of the puppets that has an entire bottle turned upside down in its mouth. In an amusing self-aware turn, the bottle displays “Paul Flinders 2008” on its label.

Both the absurdist elements and meticulous technique of Flinders’ work suggest a similar sensibility to that of Pop Surrealism, a primarily West Coast art movement that is sometimes referred to interchangeably as, or merely considered related to, Low Brow. The movement has not directly influenced Flinders’ work, but he says that having grown his own similar branch, independent of the movement, he is excited to see what unfolds. He completed his B.F.A. at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, and was considering attending graduate school on the West Coast to widen his reach in that region’s art scene.

Paul Flinders in his studio. Photo: Colleen Boerner

So far in our area’s scene, the Utah-native who moved to northeast Kansas when he was in high school has made a considerable impression. As a founding member of the Fresh Produce Art Collective that formed after several of Lawrence’s mainstay galleries closed, Flinders has taken part in numerous group exhibitions and an innovative solo exhibition. For that one at the collective’s DotDotDot Artspace gallery in September 2008, Flinders created 23 impressively diverse paintings in a 24-hour period, opening at the end of this flurry with still-wet paintings on the walls. The exhibition showed his spontaneity and untiring artistic output in an experience akin to a musical performance, which is fitting since he is also a musician who has recorded five solo albums.

Paul Flinders, "Bon Voyage," mixed media on paper, 19.5" x 39".

As he plans for future exhibitions, Flinders continues to experiment in his studio, expanding his reach into different media. In some recent projects, he has worked with brown paper and house paint, first burning the composition’s edges and then sanding the layers of media down to expose the color underneath. He has applied paint to tarps, creating individual scenes within the borders of the patchwork-like stitching. He has also created a view finder using a found wooden box and panes of glass, through which an observer can see multiple painted images coming together. As with his previous work, Flinders continues to move the observer to an emotional response, not by depicting the known world, but through color and light, an eerily familiar feeling of joy, sadness, pain, or perhaps the unremitting desire to fly.

-re-