Wesley Kimler Picks Four
I told Kimler I had trouble seeing anything of his work in Kunz. His replies, on this day and later, revealed two perspectives on the subject of artistic influence that couldn’t be farther apart. He first denied having anything to do with the development of these artists, but on another day he claimed that the three painters–Mary Livoni, John Santoro, and Kunz–had all benefited from his “sensibility of how paint should be handled,” and emphasized the extent of his discussions with them about the meaning of painting.
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Kimler’s ambivalent attitude about his own artistic influence doesn’t seem to have affected the artists themselves. All of them acknowledge a strong debt to him, but their individual sensibilities are their own: they seem to recognize that influence doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Since the newcomers’ influence here is an artist who’s not only active but sure of himself and rather contentious, they must have had to work to establish distinct identities without being disrespectful. What they all seem to have picked up, if anything, is Kimler’s zest for conflicts, both social and aesthetic.
Printmaker Rooney–who has worked in the studio of Tony Fitzpatrick, undoubtedly a more direct influence than Kimler–makes gum/oil transfers on paper in which two kinds of line drawings engage in perpetual debate. Black, thick-lined drawings of organic forms stand out against the faded outlines of technical drawings suggestive of patent documents; in some cases, the mechanical drawings stand out against the organic ones. With titles such as Distinctively Original and Customized Comfort–phrases that sound borrowed from advertising copy–Rooney gently addresses the folly of technological utopianism while noticing the sensuousness of beans and roots.
