Schneider Museum of Art
John Buck's Woman of The House,
1999
John Buck's Tatoo 1992
Emblems, Effigies and Enigmas
The Art of John Buck (continued: Page 2)
Throughout the years, Buck has created extraordinary woodblock prints that are monumental in size compared to those by other contemporary artists. Using frames as large as 7’ x 3’, he draws directly into the closely placed wooden planks with a stylus. The linear marks made by the stylus coalesce into an array of drawings—some vignettes of frenzied single actions and some interconnecting—while others digress from each other. These linear patterns form a complex plane that is abundantly rich in detail and provides a lively background for the bold, central image. Strong colors further differentiate the central images from the delicately incised linear patterns in the background.
These woodblocks, initially created to yield prints, offer a fascinating visual experience of their own. Included in this exhibition are examples of woodblocks and their corresponding prints. Viewers can compare the two, gaining insight into the process, as well as experiencing cause and effect in aesthetic terms.
Since 1993, Buck has been creating relief-like sculpture—partially inspired by the physicality of working with the woodblocks. These sculptures are combined into assemblages/tableau. Each tableau comprises seven to ten separate enclosures, or niches, that vary in configuration from square to rectangular, vertical to horizontal. Each niche contains a carved icon or likeness of flora, fauna, or other symbols that may be fully carved or in bas-relief. The overall dimension of each niche is determined by the contour and size of the image it holds.
When looking at these tableaux, one is tempted to find a common denominator to link these disparate icons. Critic and art writer John Yau describes them eloquently in an essay for one of Buck’s most recent catalogs: “Buck’s wall sculptures are both tactile and pictorial, abstract and figurative. They resemble rebuses in which the viewer recognizes that what connects the disparate objects and things together (a pair of interlocking hands forming a bird, the silhouette of a bird in an open book) is a visual rhyme. However, the relationship is indirect and elusive rather than direct and literal. Often, but not always, the rhyme stems from resemblance—the way the silhouette of one thing resembles the silhouette of another. And yet, even as the viewer recognizes the imaginative rhymes and associations Buck has made in connecting different things and silhouettes, they begin opening onto a larger realm of speculation.”
Aside from the poetic connotations inherent in Buck’s choice of symbols, the objects could also be construed as a complex visual vocabulary alluding to certain subjects. Objects such as an hourglass, keys, a butterfly, a chain, hands holding prayer beads, wristwatches, or a pair of dice could signify the measuring of time, metamorphosis in time, changes of time, or the use of time in games of chance. Or, perhaps, the choice of images is completely arbitrary, chosen and assembled for visual reasons without a literary connotation whatsoever. Whatever the case, they are striking visual statements—clear and strong in graphic impact and enigmatic in meaning, contemporary hieroglyphics from Montana.
Josine Ianco Starrels, Curator
The Art of John Buck Page 1
