Painter David Linn walks an enigmatic path

By Frank McEntire

We must recognize that the real contact with a work of art is always a secret thing, born of a mysterious relation... well be-yond the conscious zones of our being, and, no doubt, well beyond what our eyes perceive in the work. Father M.A.Couturier-

PROVO - David Linn's painting studio is near the Harris Fine Art Center at Brigham Young University, the same building where his final MFA exhibit hangs. He graduates next month and is looking for a new studio.

A work space is essential for Linn, who said his "lifelong struggle of fashioning meaningful images is not something that can be chosen in the traditional sense."

His exhibit "Where I Walk," includes five large works and more than a dozen small pieces. They are the product of more than five years of experimentation with monochrome and tonalist techniques. "Waking dreams without color," he calls them. Georgia O'Keeffe, Pablo Picasso (his famous "blue" period) and other painters also went through monochromatic periods. Some, like Mark Tansey, have yet to leave it.

The strengths of Linn's monochrome paintings (his works vary from a burgundy hue to warm and cool browns or grays) are their simplicity and technical achievement. The settings are barren fields with plumes of smoke on the horizon or talus-strewn fields and mountainsides.

"I approach these paintings as meditations, attempts to provide myself with evidence of a spiritual process," Linn wrote in his master-of-fine-arts final project report. "They are also offerings, fashioned objects of devotion to be placed outside myself where they can be witnessed by others."

These are good times for competent realist painters such as Linn. Narrative and figurative work is finding acceptance among serious collectors of contemporary art. Admirers and speculators are already purchasing Linn's paintings. His list of clients and collections includes a number of corporate, university, museum, and private collections.

"The whole resurgence of realism is a valid movement," Linn said. Actually, it is not resurgence. Realism and other forms of representational art have coexisted with the more notorious movements of abstract expressionism, minimalism and conceptualism. It is only within the past decade that representationalism has gained recognition with the art intelligencia for its potential to address contemporary issues.

Like all art genres, contemporary representationalism has its vulnerability. As often happens with narrative work, its illustrative power is seductively easy to conscript into the production of art "merchandise," usually sentimental and non-threatening decorative images demanded by popular culture.

Linn's landscapes on exhibit, however, are conceptual rather than narrative. Spirit pole markers and stone cairns punctuate the space that perhaps shows unexplored or previously investigated paths, a record of his life's journey. Suspended within the vistas of his large paintings are expertly rendered draperies, adding a theatrical flair to the work (Linn has also designed and executed theater sets.

"The Calling (Hierophantic Time)" shows a curtain that, if not parted, would suggest a continuous pathway through a field of stones. The curtain is pulled back to expose the path's abrupt end, inviting the viewer imaginatively to step onto the path and decide to go forward over the stones, to continue clearing the path, or to go back. At the end of the clearing, a small plumb bob-shaped stone is balanced upright, seemingly twirling on its point.

The strength of Linn's images is their ability to pull the viewer into their two-dimensional landscape without the need for spoken or written explanation, although underlying the work is a sophisticated spiritual intent primarily based on his personal beliefs. Linn's recent paintings tend, as Picasso said, to ask questions, not necessarily provide answers. Interpretations remain with the painter and viewer individually.

Linn's symbol-accented landscapes are refreshingly free of didacticism. The smoke or dust devils that rise into the sky in his 4-by-5 foot "Wilderness (With Two Events)" are symbols of unknown occurrences in a distant place. We only know they are "events." For Linn, the illuminator must subjugate the illustrator. This struggle is, perhaps, why he said he "fears chasing away whatever muse lurks" beside him. "Just why certain modes of expression or images galvanize my psyche is a mystery to me and I believe it should largely remain so."

The mysterious gift of his muse, disciplined determination and intellectual encounter give this emerging artist's work promise.

Frank McEntire, a sculptor and curator, is the Salt Lake Tribune's art critic.