Review

"The Raccoon and the Fool," Mixed Media.

Leto Blackman
Lost in the Woods

2:30 p.m.-1:30 a.m.

JP Wine Bar
1526 Walnut
Kansas City, MO
816.842.2660

Hours: 2:30 p.m.-1:30 a.m. Monday-Saturday
Runs through: Sept. 30

Artist's site: http://www.letoblackman.com
Gallery site: http://www.jpwinebar.com

Viewing Leto Blackman's mixed-media work is like looking at a picture storybook with no words beyond the title. You know something's going on ...  but it's up to you to write the tale.

Take The Racoon and the Fool, today's featured piece. It would seem the raccoon is playing/has played/is about to play a trick on the fox (making the title especially significant, given the fox's stereotypical slyness) ... but then again, some other story entirely could be playing out on the canvas. Depending on the viewer's imagination and proclivities, the possibilities range from the gently moralistic fable to something grim involving a  hunter or a pack of hounds ... with a wide territory in between.

Blackman's Lost in the Woods, now on display at JP Wine Bar in the East Crossroads, marries print and photography to produce the main image of  a bare, leafless, black tree, often with animals and/or people under or near it. Adding in other media (often watercolor, ink and charcoal), he produces work of stark, haunting beauty.

My eyes see beauty for what it is. This is why I choose photography for my medium of expression, Blackman writes. It slices a scene out the ether and presents it to the world. All of a sudden a scene has no history, and yet comprises all the history of one’s thought. From my own perception, my work seems to evoke a sense of yesteryear.

Beyond suggesting a sense of another time, Blackman's creations also suggest other places and other disciplines.

Chinese painting, most notably works from the Northern and Southern Sung dynasty, is very influential in my work, he explains. The mathematical beauty of organic forms in nature is also drawn upon. The musings of fairy tales also play a role in the translation between the workings of my mind and the consummation of my art.

Math, history, literature. That's a lot of knowledge packed into each canvas. But by giving others an invitation to join the narrative process, Blackman comes across less as an instructor and more as a facilitator ... and in the process, invites his viewers to invest in the work not only intellectually, but emotionally as well. That's the mark of a good storyteller in any medium.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Updating...