Notes on Nicholas Pike’s Exhibit at Jon Frum
Jack Zoltak
The first thing one sees, the first thing that registers upon entering Nicholas Pike's exhibit at the Jon Frum Foundation space are big, bold red letters on canvas: the style of letters that recall a makeshift sign on plywood nailed to the entrance of an abandoned mineshaft that warns you of DANGER. At first, because once in a while, like everyone, I look too quickly, I saw only the words. But don't jump to conclusions; take the time to savor and experience these multi-layered, beautifully- textured enigmatic paintings and you will realize that this artist really knows what he is doing. For instance, the repetitive use of red for the lettering acts as a cohesive element even though the paintings themselves display a deft diversity.
The source material for the text comes from Pike's experiences chronicling the contemporary drug culture, which he has also filmed extensively. To my mind, the work grows in presence the longer one sits in front of it and appreciates the pure painting of it: one sees an artist at once creating something beautiful and at he same time passing something on of a human drama outside of aesthetics, using his abilities to connect vastly different worlds of art and the "street."
It takes conviction to take a large canvas and use it to convey three words, such as "klein, aber, doctor," for instance. In this same titled painting, these three words sit boldly upon a field of ghostlike washes of light ochre and white, with patches of Guston-like thick strokes of gray paint that appear metallic dispersed throughout. The words and expressive background vacillate between complimenting and contradicting one another.
In the painting "a little speed and some housework turned out to be special k," Pike's connection to Abstract Expressionism is evident. Present is what Richard Diebenkorn spoke of as the struggle and discovery of the artist that takes place on the canvas, the decision making and revision that made painting interesting and vital to him. This piece has a frenzy of energy and color and controlled graffiti imagery where the brush effectively evokes spray paint.
There are paintings in the show that do not include words, and they are also executed with great care and skill and a true painter's sensibility.
Here is one last thought that evolved from thinking about Nicholas' work. It is difficult enough to transfer ideas into words, but ideas into images seems to be even more Herculean a task. To do that a visual artist needs to use elements of pictorial drama, Goya and Beckmann come to mind, and symbols whether classical or personal. And there is always, in the case of words, the danger of them overpowering the images. This does not have to be viewed as a negative, as I used to think. Perhaps the non-word images add to the whole by being subordinate to text. That is something subjective decided by the viewer. Words "cut to the chase," so to speak, but in these paintings the words, out of context, are as abstract as the surfaces they inhabit (except for "datura" and several other paintings with plant imagery). But that too, becomes part of the struggle of the artist: the power and speed of the word versus the aesthetic satisfaction of creating a beautifully painted surface. The struggle and result both have their own uncertainties and rewards, and in Nicholas Pike's paintings both are worth experiencing. This work is both provocative and beautiful, and the longer you look the more they entice and fascinate.