BRIAN JUDE REARDON: PAINTINGS
ClipArt Gallery in collaboration with Atlantic Works Gallery • East Boston, MA • clippershipwharf.com/art/ • Through September 2022
What better celebration of summer than taking a road trip! Brian Jude Reardon offers us exactly such an imaginative opportunity. The Clip-Art Gallery is filled with ebullient paintings of vehicles that could be just the perfect mode of getaway, even if only in fantasy.
Happytown, a large painting of a classic Airstream trailer with a western landscape reflected in its mirrored stainless-steel surface, is an enticing introduction to a veritable lexicon of vehicles. Accompanying Happytown is a series of eight smaller Airstreams, executed in expressive alla prima technique. Many moods are reflected in the mirror surfaces of Call to the Bullpen, Snake Country, Candy for the Roadtrip, among others which are painted in varied light moving from dawn to sunset.
On another wall, two iconic VW campers, Orange m&m and Blue m&m, stand like stalwart sentinels framing Candy Isetta and 1955 Isetta Sky. These post-WWII cars, produced in Germany, are even smaller than a Fiat 500. The spacious interiors of the square, practical VW busses filled with possibility, contrast with the almost toy-like curves of the Isetta’s fancifully painted surfaces.
Each vehicle has its own personality. Mini-Jeep, painted in bright orange and yellow against a flat cobalt sky seems to be grinning at us with its intricately designed grille and half lidded headlight “eyes.” Proud Ford looks as if it is an animal about to lunge out of the picture plane. Reardon is a sculptor in paint as he poses his subjects against flat planes of color so that they “pop out.” His palette contrasts hot and cool colors, and his use of pattern and detail create dialectics of subtle and exquisite tension.
It is impossible not to feel uplifted in the presence of these unique portraits. They are gentle, tender, meticulously rendered, and strong. The solid black of the tires grounds the vehicles and keeps them from taking off in flight. Reardon’s sense of humor and adventure infuses the paintings with infectious joy. His paintings offer an ecstatic experience of pure pleasure. View and enjoy them at this wonderful gallery on the edge of Boston Harbor.
—B. Amore