Dream-Inspired Sculpture: Ron Pippin’s Saintly Warriors

FACES

“In a dream one night, I saw these figures and I felt like I had to make them,” says artist Ron Pippin about the sculptural images he has been making for the past three years. Pippin’s newest mythical and spiritually themed works are on view through Jan. 25 at Sherry Frumkin Gallery in Santa Monica.

“I knew that it was extremely risky in terms of my career,” says Pippin, 47, who previously made large wooden “mainstream” constructions for public buildings. “I felt these figures would not be acceptable in a gallery setting, but I felt I had to do them anyway. It was as if I had no choice; I felt compelled.”

Pippin soon found that his fears were unfounded, however, as his dream-inspired works have brought him a larger audience and more recognition. He has shown his figures at a number of locales, including Cal State Long Beach, Santa Barbara Contemporary Arts Forum and most recently, Riverside’s Loma Linda University.

Pippin says his androgynous beings, whose faces come from the mold of a Victorian statue of Cleopatra, are “all of our ancestors put together. They represent everyone who’s fought that battle of good and evil, that battle of survival on this Earth.”

His figures appear to be martyrs and saints. They have halos, are covered in such religious imagery as crucifixes and rosaries, and one is hanging from a cross. In addition, they are adorned with the accouterments of war: arrows, bloody bandages and medals.

While the reference to war is deliberate, Pippin says, the religious one is not.

“They’re not any more saints or martyrs than any of us here today are,” he says. “We all have to be a kind of saint or martyr just to be able to get through the day, and that’s what I’m trying to embody in the figures--the grace and courage that it takes to survive. The older I get, the more I have a sense of how extraordinarily courageous people are.”

In creating the figures, Pippin, who studied mysticism in South America in the 1970s, does his own bit to aid the survival of mankind. He stuffs “prayers” or “invocations for mankind” inside the figures, some of which, he says, “have strength, or power, that just seems to leap out.

“These invocations are for everybody,” he says, dismissing the notion, however, that he is functioning as a kind of tribal priest. “I’m not religious; all of my direction is extremely personal. And it comes from my own dreams and meditations.”

Pippin’s dreams did not stop once he began to make his figures. He still has them, and they were responsible for his newest works--a series of three realistic, life-size animals (a deer, antelope and bighorn sheep) sculpted of foam. Each is ridden by one of his beings.

“A few months ago I started dreaming about the animals. My dreams were about the vulnerability of the animal kingdom, and about innocence betrayed. I wanted to show the power and grace and innocence of the animal kingdom, and I wanted to show the animals and riders in unity,” he says, adding that the works are his attempt to “restore the integrity and honor the life of the animals.”

OVERHEARD

“CalArts graduates are everywhere,” remarked a young artist in a miniskirt and black leather jacket at a recent show. “But it’s real hard for CalArts kids, especially the first couple of years out of school. By the time you get out of there, you’re so theoretically based that you’re constipated, and it’s really hard to make art.”

ELSEWHERE

The latest art show themed on the NEA funding controversy opens this week at Sherry French Gallery in New York. But rather than taking the combative approach like many other recent shows, French’s seeks to make the viewer second-guess the endowment’s decisions.

“To Grant or Not to Grant” features 30 artists who have applied for NEA grants. The object of the show is for viewers to guess who actually received those grants and who were turned down. In addition, the public will be asked who they think should have received government funding. The show runs through Feb. 2.

CURRENTS

The World Fellowship Foundation plans to begin an exchange program in 1991 bringing Soviet artists to America and sending American artists to the Soviet Union. They are currently accepting slides, resumes and letters from interested artists.

During the exchange, which will last for at least a three-month period, artists will be provided with work, living space and materials and will visit museums, galleries and artists’ studios in their host country.

The foundation is headed by newly appointed executive director Jacqueline Kronberg, former executive director of the Los Angeles Arts Council. The foundation was established in 1988 and has been funded by proceeds from five limited-edition serigraphs by Brett Livingstone Strong, commissioned by Gallery Rodeo of Beverly Hills. Information: (818) 781-6637.

HAPPENING

Otis/Parsons Art Institute will host an open house next Sunday 1-3 p.m. Course previews, tours of studios and classrooms and demonstrations. Call: (213) 251-0501.