Andrew Myers at Doll Gardner

A talented draftsman, Andrew Myers has produced a series of huge and engaging self-portraits in oil stick, charcoal, marker and paint. These large, shaped drawings, mounted directly on the wall, imply a fearless introspection while invoking an old tradition in Western art: physiognomics, the pseudoscience correlating facial features with emotion and character. Studies in expression, varying from quizzical to manic, even disturbed, Myers's grimacing heads also exhibit diverse mark-making techniques and surface treatments. Viewed close up, they become satisfying linear abstractions in their own right, in shades of black, white and gray.

For this exhibition, Myers cut up and reassembled heads already made to create eight new works (all 2004), ranging in height from 6 to 9 feet. With some fragments stitched together, the constructed nature of the self is on display; at the same time, the sutures become another kind of mark in Myers's impressive formal inventory. Underlying this adventuresome recycling project is a desire, according to the artist, to "become something useful for the birds," a species of which he is quite fond. Each portrait head thus serves an avian guest. In Hunting Ground, the artist's forehead morphs into a patch of grass (actually a paper fringe), in which a sprightly yellow goldfinch for-ages. In Feeder, a vessel-shaped face sprouts red-orange blossoms from which a hummingbird, mid-flight, extracts a taste of nectar. Elsewhere, a killdeer, crow and owl employ the willing artist's crown as a comfortable perch, while a woodpecker hammers a series of (literal) holes in his brow. The good-natured humor of this enterprise culminates in Home, where the head doubles as an actual (though uninhabited) birdhouse, a circular aperture inviting entry through the tip of the artist's nose.

The paper birds evoke various associations as they park and/or peck on Myers's self-portraits: they are phallic, of course, and may also suggest spiritual visitations or feelings externalized. In a regional context, the most resonant if unintended reading of these pictures of Myers and his feathered friends is environmental. The Pacific Northwest, where George Bush I cynically pitted people against the spotted owl, remains a battleground for would-be exploiters and protectors of wildlife, forests and rivers. In these fresh and original drawings, the artist inverts the normal state of affairs, envisioning human beings as generous hosts rather than opportunist predators of nature.

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COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group