|
Guy Colwell
|
 |
|
Review extracts:
“Colwell is a quiet man who speaks in measured tones and seems shy of
the spotlight. His work, however, is anything but shy. Colwell’s magnum
opus is Litter Beach, a large painting that hung as the centerpiece of
the [Sabar] gallery’s Urban Realists show in July (2006).The cartoonish
painting depicts a crowded beach so packed with shallow people,
discarded wrappers and brand name products that not a speck of sand can
be glimpsed.”
Alex Handy, Oakland Magazine, 2007
“...he devotes himself to creating personal and political art....he
today remains true to his artistic training and political
calling....Whether or not one agrees with his politics, Colwell refuses
to back down from relating his personal view of reality.”
Wikipedia article, “Guy Colwell”, 2006
“A strong believer in artists’ participation in public discourse, Guy
Colwell works from his underground comics sensibility to create edgy
paintings of protest.”
Review from Art Map Oakland, 2006
“The art varies from more established painters such as social realist
Guy Colwell, whose show of works reflect on Hurricane Katrina and the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks....”
John Herron Zamora, San Francisco Chronicle, 2006
“There’s one painting in the whole exhibit that rises above morose
retreads of old grievances, though, that’s Guy Colwell’s “Disaster”.
Two dozen modern Americans run screaming to the left, away from an
unseen calamity off-screen right. yet there’s one young black dude near
the action who isn’t running. He’s not even screaming. He stands still,
nonplussed and suspiciously glancing toward Armageddon as if to say,
“It figures.” The only thing that comes close to the levity and
relevance of “Disaster” is Colwell’s 60-square-foot oil-on-canvas mural
“Litter Beach.” An orgy of bright colors and human forms swarm over
each other in a cartoonish depiction of Americans having some hot fun
in the sun atop a beach comprised entirely of litter.”
David Downs, East Bay Express, 2006
“The cloning of the Man with the Hood was made even more emphatic by San
Francisco artist Guy Colwell, who portrayed the figure as triplets in a
tableau reminiscent of the surrealist artist, Paul Delvaux. [Fig. 11:
Guy Colwell, "The Abuse"] Three hooded men with wires on their hands and
genitals stand on pedestals, stripped naked from the neck down (perhaps
to emphasize their connectedness to the pornographic scenes from Abu
Ghraib) while American MPs brandish nightsticks and chemical lights, the
now-familiar instruments of sodomy, and a blindfolded Statue of Liberty
is led into the room, perhaps to "witness punishment." The San Francisco
gallery that dared to show this image was attacked by vandals and had to
shut down, perhaps a forecasting of the American reception of these
images.”
W.J.T. Mitchell Clonophobia, Univ. of Chicago 2006
“In spite of the attacker’s intention to censor the [Capobianco]
gallery, their crime has spurred the interests of the press, and has
caused worldwide exposure of the painting (The Abuse). No doubt not
only the value of the painting will dramatically increase, but people
will remember it for ages to come. This painting will live in history.”
Commentary on nobeliefs.com, 2004
“One spectacular example is the massive canvas titled “Litter Beach”
which is “littered’ with humanity as well as every conceivable piece of
consumerism available.”
Ashcroft and Bailey, North Beach Journal, 2003
“He’s experienced life at its most bleak and its most hedonistic. He’s
resisted the draft, been in jail and lived all over the place. And his
art shows it.”
Juxtapoz Magazine, 2002
“Colwell, who was part of the Bay Area underground comics wave of the
70’s eventually applied his taste for ripe stylized human figures (he
admits a fondness for Hieronymus Bosch) to a number of socially
conscious pieces....These days his interest has turned green....Litter
Beach represents the “worst” of both those worlds, a carnival of flesh
spoiling the earth....”
Kelly Vance, East Bay Express, 2002
“The events in his life caused his work to evolve from benign
abstraction to powerful statements against violence. His latest work
combines both elements....It is colorful, abrasive and reflects a
sensitivity to homeless people....”
Jolene Thyme, Oakland Tribune, 1995
“Colwell’s Bosch-like visual world holds nothing sacred; his portraits
of city life’s underbelly made him a hit with post boomers growing up
in a post-peacenik age.”
Chiori Santiago, Oakland Tribune, 1992
“...densely-peopled tableaux of dramatically-pregnant life scenes....”
Lou Stathis, High Times, 1991
“Colwell has stuck to his convictions in painting throughout his
career....His work focuses on ecology, social protest, peace and urban
life...portraying groups of people interacting with each other....The
intimate details, as well as the subject, display his social and
political commentaries. Colwell’s works draw largely from memories of
his own experiences. He’s participated in nuclear protests, peace
walks...and was imprisoned for a year-and-a-half for refusing to be
drafted into the Vietnam War.”
Linda Dubois, Auburn Journal, 1991
Guy Colwell - Painter. Born in Oakland; attended CCAC. His paintings,
in a tight, linear style of illustrative surrealism, focus on themes of
urban violence and social protest.
Thomas Albright, Art in the San Francisco Bay Area 1945-1980
“To a small number of collectors, he is considered the most daring and
outspoken artist to come from the political upheavals of the vietnam
era...a modern Brueghal come to haunt us with mankind’s eternal
brutishness....But there is a positive image in this revolutionary’s
vision. See the hope filled multitude stream forth from the boiling
city, tossing guns aside...”
Gaylord Willis, House Organ, 1986
“Colwell has become well known for his highly detailed, realistic
street scenes....his people are very particularized, their facial
expressions carry a lot of messages.”
James Phoenix, City Arts Monthly, S.F. 1982“
The comic panel is too small a universe for a painter like Guy Colwell.
The...artist likes to expand the world of his dreams on canvas, and
it’s a world that contains some of the finest American art.”
Clay Geerdes, Cobblestone, 1976
“A San Francisco master....You owe it to yourself to see this one.”
Ken Kelly, City Magazine, 1976
“...his profusion of detail and glossy, glistening surfaces lend his
images a prickly heat power which one does not forget quickly.”
Thomas Albright, S.F. Chronicle, 1976
“His best pictures project a distinctive and unsettling vision with a
force that is not at all common on the art scene....a bizarre blend of
crude caricature and wyeth-like sophistication....There is a steely
hardness beneath the saccharine prettiness of Colwell’s painterly
surfaces, and an edge of nastiness to his expression that charges these
pictures with a Gothic quality....”
Thomas Albright, San Francisco Chronicle, 1975
“His approach is unique in that throughout his paintings, no matter how
gruesome or frightening or sarcastic on the surface, there flows a kind
of stoic faith in humanity rarely encountered in contemporary art.”
Madrona Poetry Journal, 1971
