Art Review

Human Auras: In “Self-Portrait as David,” one of the cyanotypes in John Dugdale’s current show at Stephen Cohen Gallery, the artist stands nude in the pose of Michelangelo’s famous sculpture. Like the young David, whose spiritual resources gave him the strength to battle the mighty Goliath, Dugdale works against formidable odds, not only in restaging classical subjects that have been immortalized by artists for centuries before him, but also in attempting to create art at all after being nearly blinded by HIV-related strokes and seizures several years ago.

Dugdale had a thriving career as a commercial photographer before losing most of his eyesight, and his still lifes and posed tableaux here exude the same romantic air of perfectibility that must have pervaded his layouts for “Martha Stewart Living.” The translucence of glass vessels, the fecundity of split fruit and the portentous presence of old books all harmonize in tabletop still lifes of textural and symbolic richness.

The prints’ deep cyan blue intensifies the aura of the antique, especially in Dugdale’s images of male nudes posed among ancient ruins, which feel suffused with nostalgia for an earlier ideal. Theatricality figures strongly in all of the artist’s work, but most heavy-handedly in the images of religious or mythical import.

The costumed tableaux of several late-19th century British photographers come to mind here. Dugdale’s efforts, always elegant and usually melodramatic, fall somewhere between the luscious sensuality of Julia Margaret Cameron and the kitschy moralism of H.P. Robinson and Oscar Rejlander.

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* Stephen Cohen Gallery, 7358 Beverly Blvd., (213) 937-5525, through April 11.