Recurring, invented creature themes are an important part of my images. These creatures seem familiar, as are connotations of place in the work. Yet, the viewer soon realizes that if they are familiar, they are familiar through dreams..
.. The viewer is drawn into the surface as though to investigate a sub-atomic particle structure. My paintings are about anachronistic relationships – parts are brought together, manipulated, expanded upon, and ordered. Once this is accomplished, there are conversions which occur – canvas seems to become stone, wood becomes water or vapor, and rubber seems to become slate(1).
Alfred DeCredico
As we move through the last decade of the twentieth century, many questions about the relevance of art and which issues will be paramount surface. The post-modern mania of the eighties appears passé, as artists and audiences become disenchanted with media-generated and blatantly appropriated imagery, and the 1980s money boom. A quest for something more –"substance over style"–is voiced. The current situation recalls an environment of the early 1970s, characterized by a tolerance and desire for pluralistic art, and a rekindling of interest in historical reference and spiritual fulfillment.
Today many artists evince a heightened interest in making spiritual and political statements: Andy Grundberg’s recent article in New York Times reaffirms this observation: "…Nor does post-modernism any longer pose a challenge to the dominion of painting, as it appeared to do in the mid-1980’s…As has happened before in the 20th century, art that aspires to represent the higher ground of human existence will most likely be abstract, since abstraction is the obvious ally of the spiritual. It seems fair to say that most of the new abstract art will take the form of painting, although sculptors are once again showing interest in pared-down forms…"(2). Although this writer concurs with Grundberg, she remains skeptical about the "new spiritual": despite the best stated intentions, limelight focus often generates charlatans and corruption leading to boring trends, more rhetoric, and vacuous art.
Serious artists do not need legitimated stages. Time has proven this over and over again. The explorations of Cézanne, Malevich, Mondrian, and Kandinsky dispensed with subject matter in order to release introspective and spiritual pictorial expression. Pollack, Newman, and Stella advanced abstraction in the second half of this century. Collectively their nonobjective lessons continue to impact on artists and remain viable despite art fashion. Although, in the eighties, abstraction took a back seat position to Neo-Expressionism and Neo-Geo, such American artists as Mel Bochner, Terry Winters, Carroll Dunham, Pat Steir, Michael Kessler, Elizabeth Murray, Sam Gilliam, and others listed in Abstraction; Abstraction(3) continued to re-examine the definitions of abstract art and to produce inventive solutions. Let us not misperceive the 1990s revival of abstraction as being a "new" style or attempt to slot artists who have continued working within this tradition as ‘band-wagon" jumpers. Many genuine abstract artists have held their ground over the past twenty-five years despite shifting styles and the expense of neglect.
Mainstream trends mean nothing to Alfred DeCredico. Here is an artist concerned with neither modernist nor postmodernist theories but one who possesses an acute understanding of both Western and non-Western art and continues a love affair with Italian culture, especially the music of Verdi. Opting to employ elements from various traditions in order to release his expression, this artist creates a fantasy that touches on psychic drama within large and complex formal settings ethereal of space.
DeCredico has expressed his observations of the human drama using the vocabulary of abstraction that has served him over the past twenty years. Here is a self-confident character who knows what he wants and does not require popular validation. He has dedicated his life to being an abstract artist while probing philosophical questions about life’s drama and her mysteries. Engaged in challenging the structure of painting and sculpture, his elusive diary of imagery is a testimony to the personal nature of his art. When asked about his approach to working, he stated:
"Living in Providence, Rhode Island, I have striven to establish a sound work base, rooted in a continuum of the highest traditions. From this base, devoid of fad or fashion, I have been able to focus on the development of my work. I have explored the use of my symbols through diverse forms, both two and three-dimensional. They have been presented as paintings, wax box constructions, found object constructions, bronze sculpture, prints, charcoal drawings, and mixed media drawings, The symbolism in my imagery remains constant"(4).
My first encounter with Alfred DeCredico’s work alerted me to an art which affords no easy answers and which demands the viewer’s full attention. Its overridingly dark character called to mind the strength found in many great Spanish artists who comprehended the power and value of harnessing the non-color of black. DeCredico’s work sparks a sensation felt in the presence of looming conglomerate rocks and ancient weathered walls; his enigmatic puzzles invite examination and speculation.
A spectrum of master works is apparent as providing points of reference; the art of Kandinsky, Arp, Matta, Gorky, Dubuffet, Cornell, and Pollock, as well as cave paintings come to mind. Alfred DeCredico confirmed that all of these have played an influential role in shaping his aesthetic; "Early Byzantine and Islamic symbolism have also been important sources in the development of my imagery…I was able to see more clearly the link between these elements in my work and the other major themes I use, those of tribal and Far Eastern iconography"(5). The latter is especially apparent in his totemic bronze sculptures, which reveal a definite connection to primitive fertility gods and icons, as well as art brut.
What is this work about? In the images produced between 1987 and 1990, a formal rectitude, evoking Cubist structure, becomes the backdrop for a spatial theatre of abstract and calligraphic shapes. Here is an art that evinces a unified idiosyncratic poetry, pervaded by melodrama and a sense of grotesque, yet offers visual pleasure through the magnificence of its execution. The composite of imagery results in a tapestry of wide-ranging references from myth, magic, music, fantasy, and even graffiti. The spontaneous linearity found in Surrealist poetry is evident, stripped of the gaiety of color and bravado of statement. Instead, an aura of silence contains the information housed within the diaphanous planes of subdued hues and texture.
How does one begin to decipher this pastiche of styles, influences, and poetic symbolism? References to French and German painting come to mind, with each contradicting the other. Formal concerns clash with emotive and quirky symbolism.
Here is an artist who is concerned with life’s mysteries and perpetual contradictions. The series titled Requiem is a testimony to this. DeCredico believes that requiems are some of the most complex and moving works of music ever commissioned. However, he sees them "as celebrations of an extended life fulfilled, and not as a tragedy and end by death"(6). When pushed to expand on this, DeCredico referred to late Joseph Campbell and his definition of "Death being like breaking the surface of water"(7).
The Requiem series, part of which is shown in this publication, consists of 11 paintings and 25 drawings. The title for each piece is generated either during the actual creation of the work or soon afterwards. Titles such as If Wishes Were Horses (Beggars Would Ride), Deaf in One Ear/Blind in One Eye, and The Absence of Gravity, are a testimony to Alfred DeCredico’s fascination with contradiction and to his sense of humor. At times laughter is evoked, however, upon closer examination a haunting sensibility pervades. These new works reveal both an advancing complexity of statement and an increasing sophistication of technique. One needs only to compare the piece Falling Into A Lake in Africa (1989) with the drawing Deaf in One Ear/Blind in One Eye (1990) to observe a definite evolution in this artist’s execution of the paint, and his subtle presentation of symbolism. What appears now more simple and reduced is really more complex and enlarged. The artist’s use of multiple panels releases both a tension and prompts a dialectic between each unique surface area.
The content of this work reflects DeCredico’s innate response to contemporary experiences, his fascination with life-and-death, and the pull of Eros and Thanatos. Dark and austere areas butt up against lighter ones, resulting in the activation of sweeping planes of pigment and gestural overlapping edges. Through DeCredico’s use of contrasting hues, varying tones, and textural edging, what might be perceived as separate, joined units actually read as a unified, expansive field. This is enforced by what appears as a connecting ethereal veil floating over the surface plane and by the rhythmic movements of his dancing, private symbols.
In these new works, classical pictorial structure provides the scaffolding for romantic painterly invention. Each set of panels reveals a separate drama. Their forms retain their autonomy and invite us to explore a visual world inspired by the monumentality and power of music, and by the mysteries of life. These complicated image-metaphors are elaborations of this artist’s continued visual experimentation inspired by an inner personal quest.
"These marks are the truest expression of the darkest part of the subconscious– the things which must be probed for, with the skill of a surgeon and with the clumsiness of a child picking a splinter out of his / her finger with a needle…The making of images is essentially a question of ethics. There is a thin line, which is walked– the question of ethics cannot be camouflaged nor should it be. The creature in us all is revealed in the image– the willingness to allow the best to roam freely is the source of the power of the image. I always look for my beast– I love my beast and I fear him. Each image is about living and dying– union and separation-God and the devil-celibacy and extreme sexual activity…When committed to the journey, there is no turning back"(8).
Elaine A. King, Ph.D.
Director
Carnegie Mellon Art Gallery
NOTES
1, 4, 5, 6, 7. All quotes from Alfred DeCredico are taken from conversations between the author and the artist that took place throughout August and September 1990 and from a correspondence written to the author by the artist on 24 August 1990.
2. Andy Grundberg, "As It Must to All, Death Comes to Post-Modernism," New York Times, Sunday (September 16, 1990), Section 2, p. 47.
3. Elaine A. King, Abstraction: Abstraction, (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon Press, 1986). This catalogue accompanied an exhibition of the same title. It featured the work of veteran abstract artist, Sam Gilliam and seven somewhat younger artists (Emily Cheng, Sharon Gold, Jonathan Lasker, Kathleen Montgomery, Michael Mulhern, David Reed, and Stephen Westfall). King and David Carrier aspired to clarify nonobjective art in the mid-eighties during the height of figurative expressionism.
8. Alfred V. DeCredico, The Book of Tortures, (Providence, 1989). This statement is taken from a book of 75 drawings made by the artist which includes an essay written to further illuminate his personal imagery.
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