ART REVIEW : NATURE GETS BIG BOOST BY SLONEM

Paris Green Gallery (7825 Fay Ave.) is exhibiting exuberant paintings by New York artist Hunt Slonem.

The artist, who has garnered much favorable critical attention in the capital of contemporary art, uses a high-key palette in broad and loose strokes to create densely patterned, expressive jungle scenes. They are a kind of update of Hicks’ “Peaceable Kingdom,” in which ocelots lie down with rabbits and deer, monkeys and tortoises.

A favorite subject is exotic birds, such as toucans and cockatoos. Six dozen or so are residents of his New York loft.

Slonem has lived for extended periods in Nicaragua, Peru and Mexico, and in his works conveys the sensuality of tropical areas of those countries. There is as well a sense of naivete borrowed by this very sophisticated artist from the conventions of the truly naive--a brilliance of pigment, a determination to fill every available inch with information pushing against the edges of the painting and an ostensible awkwardness of drawing. Indeed, drawing is absent as the artist works directly with his paint and brush creating an improvisatory energy across the surface of his canvas.

In the strongest works in the exhibition, such as “Hawkheads” and “Hornbills,” the dense passages of representational imagery (animals and plants) and patterned field (crosshatched bands of color) flicker ambiguously, dissolving into pure abstraction. While the profusion of color and form seduces the viewer the formal qualities of the works will sustain interest. These are physically strong paintings.

Slonem has for some years worked simultaneously on three series: paintings of animals, paintings of saints and paintings of Inca gold. All represent varieties of treasure and all represent worlds in crisis, realms of existence that are disappearing: the non-Western world, the world of faith and the world of nature, all of which are being destroyed by rationalism in the service of greed.

In his paintings of saints with animals Slonem suggests a turning to feeling and intuition as a means to cope with our plight. A favorite subject is the Peruvian priest St. Martin de Porres (whom the artist has painted more than 30 times). A humble man holding a broom (to sweep away evil), he is surrounded by animals such as dogs and cats representing loyalty.

He has also painted Dr. Gregorio Hernandez, who is widely venerated as a faith-healer to this day. Again we are presented, rather than confronted, with the consequences of the modern world of mechanical wonders. A glorious painting of Hernandez standing at parade rest in a business suit and hat in the midst of tropical foliage may be seen at the Paris Green Gallery.

With these paintings Slonem seems to be suggesting that despite the imminent threat of our own disappearance, we may indeed be saved by workers of miracles.

New York critic John Yau has appositely commented: “Instead of despairing over our increasing alienation from nature, the artist posits a utopian fantasy of harmony and truce. It is not a naive assertion, as some viewers may think. It is a remarkable act of generosity and faith in mankind’s better nature.”

The exhibit continues through Nov. 29.