Chicken skin, sexy? In “Current Fictions: Work by Emerging Artists” on display at the Museum of Photographic Arts, Mary Beth Heffernan manages to do for folds of chicken skin what Georgia O’Keefe did for flowers. The luxurious use of shadow and light make her black and white chicken skin photos look positively erotic.
Along with Heffernan, seven other young emerging American artists including Liz Birkholz, Steven De Pinto, Rick Hards, David Keating, Gavin Lee, Robert Parke Harrison and Liza Ryan bring their new and diverse methods of creating art to the Balboa Park Museum.
Each artist demonstrates a unique style and some of the pieces include dream-like impossibilities, isolated body parts, Monty Python-esque people-bugs and an emotional family history. The one thing present in all of the pieces is the evident use of the camera as a tool. In each work of art, the photograph is just a part of the whole. It is never an end in itself.
“This show gives an opportunity to express that photography is just a tool,” De Pinto, one of the exhibiting artists, said.
De Pinto, an SDSU graduate, focuses his art on modern devices which he finds “both fascinating and repelling.” One of his pieces centers on a photograph of what looks to be an old nuclear warhead he stumbled across during one of his regular visits to the Southern California desert’s “sensitive areas,” or abandoned weaponry test sights. De Pinto’s other pieces include photos of old bomber planes and bullets combined with lots of lacquer, Bondo and deep rich colors.
“I’m fascinated with technology, but it goes beyond just the guy thing of liking a hot rod or an airplane. (Nuclear weapons, airplanes, bullets, etc.) are beautifully constructed but the thing that repels me is the use of this technology,” De Pinto said. “If you really think about it, it is religion. It is the way to control and provide for a community. You’re being suppressed but you’re also being handed an opportunity to be free. These are the modern day deities.”
De Pinto uses his art to express these ideas about technology.
“It is a form of communication for me,” he said. “It is my individual social commentary.”
De Pinto has had several art shows since graduating from SDSU in 1983 with a degree in fine arts with an emphasis in printmaking. He also has advice for beginning artists hoping to make it in the art world.
“Don’t do it!” he said with a laugh. “No, it depends on the individual but it takes a lot of work and honesty. It is also important to learn the business side of art and not to expect things to happen right away. Stick with it. I have to work very hard at my work; it never just comes.”
De Pinto calls his work “self-interpreting” and perhaps that term should describe all the art in “Current Fiction.” There are many meanings to be had from looking at a warhead, a close up of a belly button, an old picture of a grandma and a person’s head attached to the body of a beetle. Only one interpretation of this show is certain, which is anything can happen, even sexy chicken skin.
“Current Fictions: Work by Emerging Artists” will be on display at the Museum of Photographic Art located in Balboa Park through Wednesday, February 12, 1997.
