| Brash, bold, eclectic, reorienting are some of my first thoughts as I entered Kadar Brock’s painting show at BUIA Gallery. At the opening, all around the throngs of artist friends and admirers hang curious paintings by someone I would have guessed would have to be a wired, rough and torrid type. Probably a little moody and even very distracted and distant.Turns out this young man is quite focused, with an admirable intention to balance the physicality of his thickly applied oil paints with a formidable desire to find a spiritual, intellectual balance. Lofty goals, yes—but definitely not the whole story. |  |
Man Bites Consciousness – D. Dominick Lombardi
Brash, bold, eclectic, reorienting are some of my first thoughts as I entered Kadar Brock’s painting show at BUIA Gallery. At the opening, all around the throngs of artist friends and admirers hang curious paintings by someone I would have guessed would have to be a wired, rough and torrid type. Probably a little moody and even very distracted and distant.
Turns out this young man is quite focused, with an admirable intention to balance the physicality of his thickly applied oil paints with a formidable desire to find a spiritual, intellectual balance. Lofty goals, yes—but definitely not the whole story.
You see, these paintings are very physical—like the shiny grill of a 70s muscle car that blasts through everything from bugs to barricades. Painted polemical surfaces that wrestle hard edge accuracy with sideways sprays of neon paints that cut across and on to peaks of puckering paint. Then there’s the shapes, largely pointed triangles that jostle and sway, switching forward and back with every changing angle. To say he’s painting movement is too simple. It’s more about changes, physical and mental changes. How a mind races from one disconnected thought to another.
The painting titles are much too contrived, however, but they do give some insights to the artist’s thoughtful mind. Through the Empty Space, Through the Secret Places of the Heart looks like a Cubist’s version of a street puddle reflecting neon signs and car lights. And Once Again, You’ll Pretend to Know That, That There’s an End, That There’s an End to this Begin seems to be what one might see if they laid down in a wooded area and looked up toward the sky through a kaleidoscope. Texture, light, shadow and after-images abound in this oddly calming work.
Speak to Me in a Language I Can Hear has a distinct crest of upheaved earth—a surface impacted by a spent satellite with its archaic antennae and rusted parts. So you get the picture. The art is really about all the senses, all fine tuned and heightened and working in overdrive as they formulate a kind of cockeyed crunch, a cluster of convergences that bark and bite into your conscious.
