Portrait of an Outsider Artist

It is not unusual for the work of a self-taught artist to exhibit a simple folk art quality. In fact, that is the featured look that many unschooled artists maintain even after years of art production. Some self-taught artists demonstrate a relationship to Outsider Art, art that is considered outside the traditions of the mainstream art world and is characterized by a raw or rough quality. The visually powerful works of self taught painter Wade Myszka fit into the second category, but not neatly.

In addition to the obvious Outsider connection, Myszka works in what could be called an expressionist manner. As an art movement, Expressionism first appeared in Germany and France in the early 20th century and variations on the art form have continued.

Early Expressionist artists were concerned with the direct depiction of feeling states. The representation of reality--whether figurative or landscape--was a secondary concern for practitioners such as Kirchner, Munch, and Kokoschka, who distorted the human form and surrounding environs. Bold and incongruous colors populated their emotionally intense pictorial worlds. Think for a moment of Edward Munch’s The Scream and you’ll get the picture.

These painters seem to be Myszka’s forebears as much as artists associated with Art Brut, another name for Outsider Art. Even the colors of major expressionist painters, eerie yellowish greens alongside the intense reds and blues of someone like Kirchner, can be found in Myszka’s newly-created portrait works on display at the Upfront Gallery.

It’s not that Myszak borrowed from artists like Kirchner and others, but when expressing gruesome, violent, or just plain dramatic subject matter, a sensitive artist will choose colors that match the emotionally wrenching themes in the work. There are only so many colors to choose from, after all, and pinks and baby blues didn’t fit the bill for the early trauma-depicting artists, and they aren’t going to work for many postmodernists either.

Take the series of portraits in Myszka’s current exhibition as examples. In Irishman, Harold, and Lewis, offbeat greens and oranges appear. Along with discordant color schemes, expressionistic line dominates. The curvilinear tunneling of shape found in dramatic expressionist works is also present.

The individuals portrayed in Myszka’s works all seem to be in distress, though the viewer is often not privy to the cause of the suffering. When asked by HPR if losing his father in an auto accident when he was four could account for some of the grief-drenched expressions on faces, Myszka said he wasn’t sure but that the experience of losing a father was “certainly traumatic.”

Regarding some of the intense content, Myszka offered Fargo artist Modern Man’s observation in a conversation with HPR: “Modern suggested a connection between the portrait paintings and the Civil War because the men portrayed have a stone face feeling to them.” Myszka viewed a Civil War documentary prior to painting the portraits. He agreed that the war footage may have affected his perceptions, though his predilection for describing sadness and disturbing subjects is certainly not Civil War-specific.

The subject matter of the four by four foot painting Hank and Goliath is somewhat obvious in the title. The subject of Goliath has clear historic meaning. The artist describes this painting as a spin-off of a Caravaggio painting with the same theme, though certainly the painting styles are extreme opposites.

Myszka cleverly changed the name David to Hank because Charles Bukowski’s writings have significantly influenced him. Henry Chinaski or “Hank” is the anti-hero of many of Bukowski’s short stories, poems and novels. This literary influence seems to run through additional Myszka works with narrative content.

One thing the viewer will note unforgettably is the disturbing nature of Myszka’s paintings. One larger-scale narrative scene contains imagery of gutted pigs in the background, while the man in the foreground is painted in transparent fashion with a gun sitting in his exposed stomach.

When HPR enquired further regarding the pensive and/or gloomy and gruesome nature of much of his oeuvre he spoke at length about the amount of violence in the world. He said his paintings are not “lies like Norman Rockwell’s works.” The lives of those he portrays, he says, “are not picture perfect.” He also quoted Thoreau: “Most men live lives of quiet desperation...” Variations of this condition seem to be the ubiquitous theme that Myszka grapples with.

Outsider artists concern themselves with deeply personal reactions to objective reality and Myszka is no exception. The exception for a painter with the fine skills of Myszka is his ability to transcend the deluge of derivative rough art with masterful compositions, striking combinations of images, and narratives that reflect what he sees as a penchant for violence in contemporary culture. The entire famous quotation from Thoreau reads: “Most men live lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” The “song” in the context of Myszka’s seeming attempt at criticism of postmodern culture is an element worthy of societal and personal contemplation.

The Upfront Gallery should be commended for continuing to bring provocative visual art to the public’s attention. The Upfront exhibition features works by Myszka and Modern Man.

If You Go

What: Wade Myszka and Modern Man, multi-media opening reception.
Where: Upfront Gallery
When: Fri., July 18, 7-11 p.m.
Info: (701) 541-2640