Synesthesia is a neurologically-based phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway (i.e. seeing a sunset and smelling (non-existent) pancakes).
Parataxic Distortion is a psychiatric term to explain the inclination to skew perceptions based on fantasy. The “distortion” is in the perception of people or things, based not on actual experience with the individual or situation but from a projected fantasy.
The Shadow, as defined in Jungian psychology, is a part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings and instincts. It is everything in us that is unconscious, repressed, undeveloped and denied.
New York, NY (July 2008)—Nearly 20 new paintings by the American artist Damian Loeb (b. 1970), known for his “hyper-realistic paintings” created from collages of found images and still frames from classic movies, will be shown at Acquavella Galleries from September 5 through October 7, 2008, to launch the fall season there. Inspired by his fascination with film, television commercials and photography found in popular culture, Loeb takes fleeting images, changes their context and recreates them in a way that reveals the true depth of their ominous undercurrents in his work. The terminology in the exhibition’s title, Synesthesia, Parataxic Distortion, and the Shadow: A Show of Paintings by Damian Loeb, comes from the titles for three of the smaller (12 x 24 inches), oil-on-linen paintings featured in the show; all of which pertain to psychological terms that either directly reference ideas of perception and subjectivity or refer to emotional states that can affect observation.
“Damian Loeb is one of the most innovative figurative painters of his generation. By hand-painting striking images sourced from diverse aspects of today’s technological culture, he successfully combines skill and imagination,” said Alexander Acquavella, a director of Acquavella Galleries.
The artist, an avid fan of cinema, is influenced by the “constantly evolving visual vocabulary” found in the movies he loves, which he believes has informed and educated his ability to see. In creating these new paintings, he taught himself photography to create these images.
“In creating the images I used as the basis for this collection,” Loeb continued, “I shot all the time, constantly looking through the camera instead of over it, searching for what has now become universally familiar, painting them as if I was the director. Focusing on both the narrative and scene setting, but careful never to interfere through instruction or forced lighting, I eventually managed to find ways to compose and capture these very specific ‘personal film stills.’ These images are solidified and codified through the act of painting them on canvas where they can be viewed as a new chapter in a conversation exemplified by artists as diverse as Vermeer, Balthus, Millais and Fischl, as well as the theatrical visions of the Lumière brothers and the language created by master directors like Hitchcock, Kubrick and Spielberg.”
Among the highlights of Synesthesia, Parataxic Distortion, and the Shadow: A Show of Paintings by Damian Loeb is The High and the Mighty (2007), an oil on linen, which depicts an airplane view of the ground below in a colorful blur as the plane speeds past. The title is derived from the 1954 John Wayne drama in which everything that can go wrong does and portrays how people deal with the idea of disaster. It also is emblematic of the artist’s dislike of flying.
M (2005), another of the large (48 x 96 inches), featured oils on linen in the exhibition, places the viewer in the swimming pool, eye-level to the water, peering at a young, blond girl in a blue print bikini as she sun bathes on her stomach while lying on a raft. She appears unaware that she is being watched. Loeb explains that the title comes from the 1931 film of the same name, directed by Fritz Lang and starring Peter Lorre, “about a nasty fellow who can’t help but kill little girls….Lang does an incredible job of making you see through Peter Lorre’s eyes and empathize with the character despite his evil as he is trapped like a rat by the underground people of the city and attempts to defend himself,” he said.
Pareidolia (2008), is one of the smaller oil paintings on linen (12 x 24 inches) and another highlight of the exhibition; it is a skyscape of clouds set against a vivid blue sky; the title suggests the human predisposition to search for concrete and familiar images in otherwise random scenes. The term “pareidolia” refers to a psychological phenomenon that occurs when a vague or random stimulus, such as an image or a sound, is perceived as significant; for example, when a person thinks he or she sees face in a cloud or hears a hidden message when a record is played in reverse.
Acquavella Galleries in New York City is distinguished for its expertise in the fields of 19th-, 20th- and 21st-century art. The gallery, founded by Nicholas Acquavella in 1925, is now a three-generation, family-owned business. Today, the gallery regularly exhibits works by artists such as Paul Cézanne, Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Fernand Léger, Alberto Giacometti, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Jean Dubuffet, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol and Cy Twombly. In addition, Acquavella Galleries is the exclusive international agent for the renowned British painter Lucian Freud, the pioneer American Pop artist James Rosenquist and the New York-based realist Damian Loeb, and as well as the exclusive representative in the United States for the Beijing-based artist Zeng Fanzhi and the estate of modernist Italian sculptor Fausto Melotti. Through its exhibitions, it has also gained a reputation for organizing shows of particular note, both loan exhibitions and for-sale shows. Among the most significant over the past several decades are Fausto Melotti (2008), James Rosenquist: Time Blades (2007), Lucian Freud: Recent Paintings & Etchings (2004), Cezanne Watercolors (1999), Alberto Giacometti (1994), Robert Rauschenberg Drawings: 1958-1968 (1986), Lyonel Feininger (1985-1986, an exhibition which traveled to The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.).
AN INTERVIEW WITH DAMIAN LOEB
Q: So much of your work in this exhibition, Synesthesia, Parataxic Distortion and the Shadow, has psychological undertones. How did you become so interested in psychology and what propelled you to incorporate it in your work?
A: Human psychology has always held a special place in my work—from informing the content to guiding the compositions. The basic act of interpreting images is a complex and not-completely understood mechanism that can be easily manipulated to subvert and create new meaning from the familiar. I am a big believer in evolutionary psychology, [which states] that most of our thoughts and subsequent actions are controlled by the basic needs: self-preservation, procreation and social status. [In other words], we interpret all sensory input—in this case, imagery—and situations as to how they affect us directly in regard to these three factors. We are in a constant, subconscious struggle to act on a mix of genetic imperatives that guide our actions [while dealing with] the additional burden of higher reasoning and desire.
Q: How did you select the psychological terms that form the exhibition’s title?
A: The title, Synesthesia, Parataxic Distortion and the Shadow are the three agents of confusion and enemies of clarity. They are all forms of perceptual distortion either through confusion of input through seemingly crossed sensory wiring (synesthesia), imposition of simplistic, preconceived notions onto the complex or unfamiliar (parataxic distortion) or the coloring of our perceptions by the weakness and insecurities we are born with and add to throughout life (Carl Jung’s “shadow”). The varied results of this phenomenon fascinate me and guide my work, so it seemed logical that they should be somehow directly addressed in this show.
Q: You are known for your love of cinema. Please describe how it influences your creative process.
A: Cinema is the unique cultural confluence of all art forms that provides (in its best instances) a problem and a solution in a generally understandable narrative form. When it succeeds, it taps into our desire for structure, reason and certainty, and it rewards us with a new paradigm. This safe, artificial structure allows us emotional shortcuts to understanding the motivations and the consequences of our lives without the effort and inherent damage of the actual experiences.The better-crafted and more familiar a movie is, the more likely the new vocabulary is to be assimilated into our practical observations. Effective and immersive narratives insinuate themselves into future acts of observation. A spontaneous mimicking of a catchphrase from a movie, which is then understood to be a standard signifier for a particular situation, is an example of this phenomenon. Masters of the craft, such as [Stanley] Kubrick, [Alfred] Hitchcock, [Steven] Spielberg,[Roman] Polanski, and newer contemporary directors, such as Paul Thomas Anderson, M. Night Shyamalan and Cameron Crowe, all find ways of taking common situations and illuminating the desire we have to understand why and how they affect us. [They put] the unfamiliar situations into a context that is understandable and easily empathized. These filmmakers, much like the great masters of fine art, were motivated to understand, inspire and illuminate, providing a shining example for any artist to strive to emulate.
Q: What inspired you to teach yourself about photography and incorporate your own photos into your work?
A: The process of creation has many actionable progenitors, primarily accumulation, aggregation or isolation and articulation. Initially, through incidental exposure and economic convenience, I collected images from different media, which had the partial stubs of ideas that interested me either through the uniqueness of their imagery or their complete lack of uniqueness. The resulting collages created a new composite image that altered the interpretation of the incorporated elements. Eventually, I felt I was becoming limited by availability [of images] that could no longer be ignored. Photography was the most obvious and efficient way to accumulate the necessary imagery for what I wanted to articulate. The process of ‘collaging’ found images only helped to inform my eye and assisted in an accelerated learning curve.
Q: It has been said of your collages, “…the conversation is not between differing images or a dialogue between artists, but between the viewer’s memory of a familiar scene and Loeb’s eerie re-rendering of it.” What leads you to explore the darker side of otherwise pleasant scenes and result in your works to “exude a quiet menace?”
A: To me, the act of painting as always felt primarily like a slow, controlled anxiety attack. Panic and doubt are constant creative companions. They impose themselves on the dialogue throughout the process, silently screaming in my ears. A lot of the work I create is in aid of finding those voices and confronting them. In the end, though, it does seem that they ultimately have their way and subtly impose upon each painting their own ghostly visage.
Q: Many of your earlier paintings originated from the movies that you love. How can your personal perspective as an artist best be found amidst such iconic imagery?
A: In the end, the artist is responsible for everything within the confines of the composition. Each choice to reproduce, alter or leave out combines to make a new whole. I believe there is a commonality throughout all of my work that is evident in these choices, whether [they are] wholly invented or cooperatively and meticulously constructed. If a work is merely a faithful reproduction of an iconographic image, it fails as art. It is my hope that, individually and as a whole, the paintings contain a unique articulation of what I treasure most: Inquisitive empathy.
