Josh Dorman at 55 Mercer - New York

In his fourth solo exhibition at 55 Mercer, Josh Dorman showed dozens of his strangely romantic, abstract landscapes (dating from 2001 to '03). From 3 inches to nearly 4 feet wide, many of the works were paintings or collages, and many more were made with colored inks on antique maps or ledger paper. The topography of the maps is often an inspirational starting place for the artist's fantasies. A combination of childlike doodles and imaginary visions amid Turneresque tumults, Dorman's worlds belong to the tradition of Blake, Klee and Redon, but these creations are uniquely his own.

Dorman's titles--Apparition, These Were My Toys, Some Candy Mountain, Beast--conjure up mystical and episodic encounters. Squiggles, stains and flying monsters coexist peaceably in these landscapes with Seussian contraptions, flying furniture and buildings, as well as anthropomorphic flora and storms. It is as if energies, objects and enigmatic creatures were all journeying together on a secret quest. Equally intimate and obsessive, his vistas taunt, tease and intrigue. The best works are the larger oils, including Where We Lived, Ascension, Reckoning and Aurora. Pterodactyl-like apparitions emerge, as if from out of the ooze, from swirling washes of red, violet and yellow--color shifts that undulate like the northern lights.

Intestinal and earthy forms dominate the long, horizontal Pilgrimage, where hundreds of tiny, peculiar creatures crawl or float through a meandering black tunnel. From the faceted, fragmented structures in Lost Travels, to the planetary, watery or microscopic realms in Maritime, the paintings deal with a range of free associations and approaches to abstraction.

Picasso once said of Miro that he should grow up and quit running after hoops. Working successfully with childlike imagery, Picasso knew, is difficult. It takes a visionary like Klee to do it believably. In most of Dorman's paintings, color and drawing act independently and have yet to fully coalesce; but I have faith in this young artist's abilities. Dorman's bursts of atmospheric color resonate with a fireworks-shimmer that is beautifully emotive. And there is complexity in the drawing that is genuine and deep-seated, as if he were close to resurrecting something essential from childhood. In these landscapes, I sense that the artist is most at home while running after hoops, and I look forward to wherever that takes him.

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COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group