In the galleries: Artists imagine red in images from brutal to banal
Also: Honoring Japan’s creative culture and craftsmanship, an inventive exhibit allows viewers to be hands-on collaborators and engage with the objects on display, and an artist explores her Ethiopian identity.
Review by Mark Jenkins
May 26, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT
Meron Engida Hawke
“Ashenda Girl 3” by Meron Engida Hawke in her exhibit “Hummingbird.” (Meron Engida Hawke and Morton Fine Art)
Painter-collagist Meron Engida Hawke lives in D.C., but her pictures convey viewers to her birthplace, Ethiopia. Rendered in a flat, naive style that emulates her original homeland’s aged murals, the works in Engida Hawke’s Morton Fine Art exhibition portray women, children, animals and a traditional agrarian lifestyle where little things matter. Those include teff, the traditional grain whose individual grains are minuscule, and the tiny creature for which the show is named, “Hummingbird.”
Printed pictures of those birds, invoking a fable about their brave attempt to fight a fire with mere drops of water, are collaged into paintings made with acrylics and oilstick. Also incorporated are yarn, fabric, imitation pearls, rock-patterned wallpaper and — in two small sculptures — teff stalks that mimic human hair. The artist’s fresco-like style is functional yet poetic, much like the activities it is used to depict. Whether the subject is a noble lion, long a symbol of Ethiopia, or a humble gristmill, Engida Hawke’s pictures possess a strong sense of place.
Meron Engida Hawke: Hummingbird Through June 9 at Morton Fine Art, 52 O St. NW, No. 302. By appointment.
New Paintings and Sculptures by Meron Engida Hawke Showcase Modern Ethiopia through Religious Tableaux
Festooned with flowers and animals imbued with symbolic weight, Engida Hawke’s new exhibition tells the story of market imperialism and feminist resilience in the artist’s homeland
Washington, D.C. – Morton Fine Art is pleased to present Hummingbird, an exhibition of mixed-media paintings and sculptures by artist Meron Engida Hawke. Made up of works from the artist’s series “Teff Teffa,” “Ashenda Girl” and “Highlander,” alongside still lifes in a muralist style, the exhibition tackles issues of migration, marginalization and resistance in contemporary Ethiopia. The artist’s second solo show with the gallery, Hummingbird will be on view from May 16 – June 9, 2023 at Morton Fine Art’s Washington, D.C. location (52 O St NW #302).
Thank God there is a river, 2021. 59 x 73 in. Acrylic and oil stick on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Morton Fine Art
A native of Addis Ababa now living in D.C., Meron Engida Hawke’s artwork explores Ethiopian identity, sustainable agriculture, labor relations and women’s issues in contemporary East Africa. Struck by how the perception abroad of Ethiopia and Africa is consistently framed through media stories of famine, climate crises and war, Engida Hawke explores these issues from the inside, generating subjects in her work that are both archetypal and specific, each of whom embodies the perspective of Ethiopian womanhood while proudly acknowledging the gaze of another.
Deftly weaving contemporary news items and personal interests into her portraits with a symbolist’s shorthand, the artist takes apart and rearranges stereotypical representations of Ethiopia while focusing on the beauty of the country’s traditions and cultures.
Teff Mill 2, 2022. 48 x 81 in. Acrylic and wallpaper on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Morton Fine Art
Heavily influenced by ancient Ethiopian art, Engida Hawke’s vibrant colors and crisp narrative subjects derive from the murals and religious paintings that populate the walls of Addis Ababa. Creating from memory and imagination and research into her subjects, the artist starts with a basic tableau that she gradually layers with tones, figures and symbolic metonyms. Her recent work involves the development of a mixed-media practice that layers Ethiopian woven fabric onto canvas—an innovation inspired by recent news of Ethiopian clothing being mass manufactured with synthetic materials. Engida Hawke’s inclusion of the handwoven fabric, as a testament to her heritage, shares pictorial space here with animals and pearls—part of the artist’s innate visual lexicon of innocence, forgiveness, elegance and justice. Weaving the weighted symbols of her native culture into increasingly disparate and secular works, Engida Hawke elaborates a narrative that telegraphs from the heart of Ethiopian identity into the cacophony of global media and international affairs.
In the artist’s “Teff Teffa” series, women practice the ancient rite of cultivating teff, a small grain used to make injera, the foundational flatbread of Ethiopian cuisine. The word teff comes from
the Amharic teffa, meaning “lost”—a reference to the fact that the grain is so small that dropping one makes it impossible to find. Teff has been cultivated in Ethiopia for more than 6,000 years, a staple food for over 80 ethnic groups in the region and central part of Ethiopian national identity. Today, teff has grown increasingly expensive to harvest and mill as a result of increasing global demand, as well as regional armed conflict and drought caused by climate change. Engida Hawke references the devastation of proverbial “lost teff” in her backgrounds, dotted with the miniscule seed, while in the foreground she addresses the social and environmental effects of flower farming—a newly inedible cash crop for the region—dependent on its export to Europe and the subservience of women’s labor across eastern Africa.
By contrast, Engida Hawke showcases the underrepresented side of the Ethiopian experience in her “Ashenda Girl” series by depicting women in moments of joy, freedom and righteous resistance. The series title references Ashenda, a colorful religious festival celebrated every August in northern Ethiopia by women and girls. Taking its name from a tall grass that is woven into skirts and worn for the duration of the three-day festival, the Ashenda girls also dress in traditional embroidered dresses, with fine jewelry and braided hair. The celebration is a joyous occasion of song and dance—an opportunity for the embrace of feminine self-expression.
Hummingbird, 2023. 70 x 50 in. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of the artist and Morton Fine Art
The exhibition’s title, Hummingbird, comes from a story told by the late Kenyan activist Wangari Maathai, in which a hummingbird shows bravery by fighting a forest fire with only the water that can fit in its beak. The other animals, much larger and more capable, watch with a sense of futility while their habitat burns, but the hummingbird knows that every little bit helps. Engida Hawke connects this story to her personal experience in addressing social and climate issues through her art, and has recently taken to including mixed-media hummingbirds in her mesmerizing compositions of women like her, representing the freedom of empowerment through knowledge.
Meron Engida Hawke (b. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) creates vibrant tableaus that act as a vehicle for exploring the artist’s personal experiences and Ethiopian cultural identity. Through trust in the mark-making process, Engida has developed a rich visual vocabulary that draws influence from the colors and narratives of ancient Ethiopian art. At the intersections of abstraction and figuration, Engida’s works center a cast of expressive figures who together tell stories of vulnerability, empowerment, and resilience. Fusing memory and imagination, Engida layers tones, symbols and motifs to construct emotive scenes intended to prompt dialogue about migration, diversity and women’s experiences. Eigda Hawke holds a BFA in Fine Art from Addis Ababa University School of Fine Arts and Design. She currently lives and works in Washington, DC.
Morton Fine Art
Founded in 2010 in Washington D.C. by curator Amy Morton, Morton Fine Art (MFA) is a fine art gallery and curatorial group that collaborates with art collectors and visual artists to inspire fresh
ways of acquiring contemporary art. Firmly committed to the belief that art collecting can be cultivated through an educational stance, MFA’s mission is to provide accessibility to museum-quality contemporary art through a combination of substantive exhibitions and a
welcoming platform for dialogue and exchange of original voice. Morton Fine Art specializes in a stellar roster of nationally and internationally renowned artists as well as has an additional focus on artwork of the African and Global Diaspora.
Morton Fine Art LLC
52 O St NW #302, Washington, DC 20001, United States
In the galleries: Landmark show lauds two iconic artists
Also: A multi-artist exhibit spans nearly a century of the Black experience in America; two artists deal with the war in Ukraine indirectly with personal and esoteric approaches.
No signs of war are evident in Jaroslav Leonets’s and Andrei Petrov’s recent work, but their paintings respond to Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Leonets’s landscapes depict a land of rustic beauty, barely touched by mankind but achingly vulnerable. Petrov’s landscape-influenced abstractions refer to an earlier period in the region’s history, yet were sparked by the Russian onslaught.
Leonets is a Kyiv resident who began painting rural Ukrainian scenes before the full-blown war began. His Amy Kaslow Gallery show, “Documenting Landscapes: Ukraine’s Vanishing Terrain,” features nine impressionistic oils made between 2019 and 2022. They’re painted primarily with sunny hues, yet with areas deepened by shadow. The majority of them feature bodies of water alluringly splashed with reflected light.
Andrei Petrov’s “Fugitive Sun,” in his exhibit “Footprints in the Snow.” (Andrei Petrov/Morton Fine Art)
Similar highlights characterize most of the oils in Petrov’s Morton Fine Art show. But as indicated by the show’s title, “Footprints in the Snow,” the reflections play on white fields rather than blue lakes or rivers. Petrov is a D.C.-born New Yorker whose suite of pictures was inspired by his grandfather’s 1915 escape from a Siberian labor camp, a flight that took him to China and eventually the United States. Petrov is partly of Ukrainian heritage, and the Russian assault motivated him to revisit this chapter in his family history.
Both artists apply pigment thickly, but after that, their methods diverge. Leonets’s technique is as traditional as his imagery; clouds and cliffs alike are rendered with thick but loose gestures. Petrov applies layers of color that he then cracks and partly removes. Many of his pictures are defined by fissures that suggest the collision of tectonic plates. This signature move is visually striking, but also thematically suggestive: The fractures suggest breaks in the timeline or lives shattered by history. Where Leonets’s landscapes appear pretty but threatened, Petrov’s abstractions conjure centuries of ruin and loss.
Jaroslav Leonets: Documenting Landscapes: Ukraine’s Vanishing Terrain Through May 7 at Amy Kaslow Gallery, 7920 Norfolk Ave., Bethesda.
Andrei Petrov: Footprints in the Snow Through May 7 at Morton Fine Art, 52 O St. NW, No. 302.0Comments
“Krazy Pumpkin” by Vonn Cummings Sumner, included in his exhibit “Second Nature.” (Vonn Cummings Sumner/Morton Fine Art)
Seeking an everyman as a focus for his recent paintings, Vonn Cummings Sumner found a cat — or kat, as the word was spelled in George Herriman’s 1913-1944 comic strip, “Krazy Kat.” Sumner had been introduced to Herriman’s work by his teacher, noted painter Wayne Thiebaud, in the 1990s. But it wasn’t until 2020 that Sumner began painting Krazy as the bemused observer of dumpster fires both actual and metaphorical. Two years later, the California artist dispatched the cartoon feline into the great outdoors for the paintings in “Second Nature,” his latest Morton Fine Art show.
The original Krazy Kat was usually portrayed in a highly stylized version of Arizona’s Painted Desert. Summer’s recent paintings place him — or her, as Herriman declined to specify the character’s gender — in greener, more naturalistic climes. Krazy’s cartoonishness contrasts the realistically rendered grass, trees and sky, as well as animals such as the horse Krazy rides in two paintings that echo Degas equestrian sculptures. There are exceptions to this schema: In a few pictures the backdrops are flattened and streamlined in the manner of Matisse, and the most vivid canvas places a tiny Krazy in the surrealistic presence of a massive orange pumpkin with a red sun on the horizon of a fuchsia sky.
Sumner toys with Krazy’s persona, giving him a carrot for a Bugs Bunny-like prop in “What’s Up, Kat?” Yet the foreboding of the dumpster-fire paintings seems to have followed Krazy into Eden, where the cat is sometimes trailed by a snake. Perhaps the serpent’s undulating shape is just a visual echo of Krazy’s tail, which is as jagged as the cartoon lightning bolt that bisects the sky in “Krazy Storm.” In Sumner’s paintings, the symbols are open to interpretation, as they are in the work of another Herriman fan, Philip Guston. (“Second Nature” was scheduled to overlap the current Guston retrospective at the National Gallery of Art.) What’s clear, though, is that Sumner’s Krazy occupies a world that is as uneasy and off-kilter as Herriman’s.
Vonn Cummings Sumner: Second Nature Through April 8 at Morton Fine Art, 52 O St. NW, No. 302. Open by appointment.
Vonn Cummings: Second Nature March 11 – April 8, 2023 Morton Fine Art 52 O St NW #302 Washington, DC 20001
Second Nature is a solo exhibition of new paintings on paper and canvas by artist Vonn Cummings Sumner. First rendering Krazy Kat, George Herriman’s influential comic strip character during the early period of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sumner returns to the wandering, curious avatar with Second Nature, escorting the titular figure through newly verdant, water-pooled landscapes, open spaces and art historical-coded landscapes, longing for escape and a reconnection with Nature. Genderless and endlessly depicted, Krazy Kat stands in for “everyman,” but rarely has their roaming path seemed to follow a strange inner voice that might be its own, but also Sumner’s—raising the question “who’s following who?” as both go about a grand tour of references, past and present.
Krazy Storm (after Giorgione), 2023. Oil on panel, 24 x 18 in. Courtesy of Morton Fine Art and the artist
Second Nature finds Krazy Kat (and Sumner) on a heavy, if much-needed retreat, anxiety hanging about and lightened by the exhibition’s antithetical moments of enigma, colour and joy. Sumner’s sixth solo exhibition with the gallery, Second Nature, will be on view from March 11 – April 8, 2023 at Morton’s Washington, D.C. space (52 O St NW#302).
Introduced to Krazy Kat by his longtime mentor and friend, the late artist Wayne Thiebaud, Sumner’s character has become a fertile prompt, both for working through existential atmospheres and more painterly notions of colour, composition, control, gesture and mark-making. Where Sumner’s first body of work with Krazy Kat placed the internationalist “everyman” in horizonless, all-white backgrounds ripe with psychological references, and a subsequent 2022 exhibition watched Krazy Kat pass by inflamed trash cans and looming aerial anvils—partly a response to the time’s deep atmosphere of instability and loss—2023’s Second Nature features Krazy Kat back out in the open world, or perhaps removed from it, tramping through vivid, almost day-glo rendered deserts, forests, fields—and much of Western art history.
Returning back to colour in full force, Second Nature revives Sumner’s ongoing balancing act between “cartoon” and “painting.” Colours surge with an agency of their own, sometimes running counter to the narrative elements of the works. The graphic boldness of Night Bathers’ (2023) rectangular blue and green landscape, touched by two black trees and deep orange moon, is contrasted by the painterly chevron brushstrokes depicting waves on Krazy Kat’s bathing pool. Destabilized by colour, the work could reasonably be decoded as a night for day setting, turning the work on its head—or placing it back in a cartoon and cinematic tradition.
Horse and Rider, 2023. Oil on canvas, 48 x 65 in. Courtesy of Morton Fine Art and the artist
Belonging to a series of “Bather Kat” works ( River Bather, Green Bathers), these works are new explorations of acrylic paint on paper and may be read for a preoccupation with scrubbing oneself clean, particularly in the aftermath of the past few years and in light of Krazy Kat’s previous adventures with Sumner.
Reverie, 2023. Acrylic on paper, 22.5 x 30.25 in, Courtesy of Morton Fine Art and the artist
But longer engagement with the works draws out Sumner’s expert, playful eye for form, color and history. Capturing the airy, open tactility of the beach—depicting clouds and a sandy bluff in similarly rough, scratchy applications of paint—Beach Stretch (after Cezanne) (2023) is also a sort of pun, alluding to Cezanne’s famed bathing series. Horse and Rider (2023), drawing from Edgar Degas’ series of horse sculptures, is all speed and movement, the surface paint seeming to blur in fast motion. Grass, tree and horse alike are pulled and smoothed out—except for Krazy Kat’s tail, forever jointed in a “z” shape.
Like that zig-zagging tail, Krazy Kat cuts a pensive path, inviting us to join the existential reverie found in these unfolding spaces of rich forms and loaded marks, where Sumner offers his painterly meditations.
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American artist Vonn Cummings Sumner has revisited the classic cartoon strip character Krazy Kat in his latest solo exhibition, Second Nature, which is currently on view at Morton Fine Art’s Washington, D.C. space.
Krazy Kat is the legendary creation of cartoonist George Herriman, who entertained newspaper audiences daily during the strip’s original run from 1913 to 1944. Thanks to its surreal humour and innovative use of the comic strip format, Krazy Kat is often regarded as the greatest comic series of all time and continues to influence artists to this day.
One such artist is a Los Angeles-based painter and professor of art at Fullerton College in Southern California, Vonn Cummings Sumner. Having previously used Krazy Kat in paintings created during the pandemic, his latest series of works titled Second Nature sees the character follow in everyone else’s footsteps by once again stepping outside and exploring the world around them.
Depicting Krazy Kat walking through forests, swimming in pools and riding horses, Second Nature also sees the enduring figure explore iconography from Western art history. Retaining the sense of existential reverie and anarchy in the original strip, the exhibition also gives Vonn a chance to respond to the current world and follow up on themes he’d established in his previous Krazy Kat paintings.
The reason for Vonn’s continued fascination with Krazy Kat is partly down to the innocent and hopeless romantic qualities of the character itself. Without a set gender or even a set species, Krazy Kat acts as the perfect blank canvas onto which different topics and concerns can be projected.
“Herriman described Krazy as a ‘sprite’ – so there is something almost mystical or mythological about Krazy: an ideal empathetic effigy,” Vonn tells Creative Boom. “Also, the strip began in 1913, and there is some anarchic kind of energy that it communicates; it’s non-conformist, to say the least. Therefore, it became a kind of cult favourite among artists and writers, intellectuals and eccentrics during the 20th century. So, for me, there is an association with a certain strain of American bohemian counter-culture.”
When he first started using Krazy Kat in his paintings back in 2020, Vonn started to think more deeply about the unique opportunities it presented. “I realised that Krazy Kat is a human-animal hybrid, which is arguably the oldest/most-used subject or theme in human art, going all the way back to cave paintings. I think Krazy Kat (and a lot of our cartoon characters) is part of that lineage.”
The character made a strong impression on Vonn when he first encountered him. He can even remember exactly where he was. “I was an 18-year-old freshman at UC Davis, sitting in the back of Prof. Wayne Thiebaud’s ART 148/Theory & Criticism class,” he reveals.
“He started class one day with an image of a Krazy Kat comic strip projected on the screen and spoke with obvious affection for this odd, dense, unorthodox cartoon that painters had loved: Willem de Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, Picasso. That had a huge impact on me, being introduced to Krazy Kat in that setting, at that impressionable stage.
“After class, I went straight to the campus library and checked out their only book on Krazy Kat, an anthology with an introduction by E.E. Cummings. I was obsessed from then on, reading everything I could get my hands on – drawing from it, copying the drawings. There was a real sense of discovery, a whole world of creativity, poetry, humour, and history. Profoundly pleasurable!”
Copying the strip could only satisfy Vonn for so long, though. Even though he loves it and is informed by art history, he says he has no interest in simply recreating something or indulging in nostalgia. “I want to make paintings that are relevant to people now, to communicate something about being alive now,” he explains.
“Painting is not so much about ‘self-expression’ to me as it is about a kind of self-discovery or self-questioning. So in a way, I am using Krazy Kat as a proxy, a stand-in for myself or for all of us in a larger sense, perhaps. I think that if I try to go too directly towards an issue or subject, then it comes out too literal, too predictable, and too cliche. But, if I can come at something sideways – from an odd angle – then I feel like I can touch on some deeper things. Krazy Kat is so specific and so unusual that it becomes a way of talking about things with some extra layers and some humour.”
Another reason why Vonn finds Krazy Kat so interesting to paint is that everything keeps changing. “The world has obviously been going through many big shifts and changes – culturally, technologically, politically, pandemically, environmentally, etc. – and in the Krazy Kat strip, everything is changing all the time.
“For example, from frame to frame, within each strip, the time of day will change, the landscape/background will change, and the language will change. In Herriman’s Krazy Kat, everything is subject to change all the time. So it feels very appropriate to have Krazy Kat help me process the world.”
It’s not just the world that’s changed; Vonn’s art style has had to adapt as well. By putting Krazy Kat in the natural world, Vonn has changed not only his colour palettes but also the kinds of situations and settings that the character will experience. And from there, the dynamic of the artwork followed.
“In these paintings, I am trying to find a balance between specific landscapes that I have known intimately in my own life and archetypal/mythological/art-historical landscapes – combining my personal sense memories with the collective cultural memory of art,” he reveals.
“That is the goal, at least. These things are hard to talk about, but essentially when I am painting, I am searching for a feeling, and that feeling is something like ‘strangeness’ or ‘mystery’, something that feels familiar and yet mysterious at the same time.
“There is a richness, I believe, from the kind of rhyming that can happen with other paintings and stories from art history. Just like a writer writes in the context of all the other things they have read, or a musician composing in relation/reaction to all of the music they have heard/played – I am making paintings in the context of all the other paintings that I have seen. I get a lot of creative energy from that interaction.”
As for why Krazy Kat continues to appeal to wider audiences after all these years, Vonn reckons it’s because the strip is so inventive. “I would place Herriman up there with Louis Armstrong and Walt Whitman on the shortlist of American originals. I could go on and on about that with comic lovers.
“But from a more general audience point of view, I think there is something special about Krazy Kat as a character, and I think it has something to do with ambiguity and vulnerability. Krazy Kat is not a ‘cat’ and not a ‘human’, and not a ‘boy’ or a ‘girl’ in any kind of set way. That kind of non-binary ambiguity has great energy somehow. It is very inclusive, allowing anyone to identify and empathise with Krazy.
“The world around Krazy Kat is full of change, danger, and conflict, but Krazy stays totally sincere and open-hearted. Who wouldn’t love that?”
Second Nature is on view until 8 April 2023 at Morton’s Washington, D.C. space (52 O St NW #302).
The exhibition Ai Yo, by Chinese artist Jenny Wu at Morton Fine Art, is a seamless flow of composition, colour, control, and a chance at intersecting maths and art.
Morton Fine Art, an art gallery based in Washington DC, United States, is showcasing Chinese multimedia artist Jenny Wu’s sculptural paintings, rooted in her time-based practice, with the exhibition, Ai Yo! Displaying close to 20 new works by the artist, the exhibition underscores her engagement with latex print. Overriding ‘mastery’ with ‘discovery,’ the works act as sites to survey the nuances of composition, colour, control, and chance. For Wu, who is academically trained as an architect, conceptual ideas of construction and embodiment run deep, setting the tone for the final composition of her sculptural paintings. Consequently, what viewers witness in the exhibition are artworks that serve both as ‘built objects’ and ‘records of labour, gesture, accident,’ questioning the conventional framework of paintings and sculptures.
Briefly Inhabit a Fictional World, 2022, latex paint and resin on woodImage: Courtesy of Morton Fine Art and Jenny Wu
Each work is made with a silicon surface, over which Wu dispenses thick coats of latex paint. As soon as a layer of paint dries, the Chinese artist pours the next layer of latex. What we see, then, is a spectrum of colour that Wu breaks into small cuts, highlighting colourful cross-sections, often touched by chance elements like cracking. Furthermore, these cross-sections act as building blocks of relief. The final composition of wood panels is put together by these pieces. Interestingly, the play between ‘serendipity and planning’ removes hints of the original setting of paint, recontextualising it in a new form.
Hello to That One Person Who Nods Along Encouragingly During Presentations, 2022, latex paint and resin on wood panelImage: Courtesy of Morton Fine Art and Jenny Wu
Wu’s artistic practice is “underpinned by transformation and embodying time,” states a press release; in an interview with STIR, Wu elaborates on this, “The original format of the paint is liquid, but through the process of pouring, waiting, pouring again, waiting again, and then finally cutting and glueing, the paint is transformed into a solid form. What started as separate colours on different buckets, ends up having a conversation on these wood panels. Each time a layer of paint dries, it records time spent. The layers are not always the same thickness, and sometimes the paint cracks during drying or the next layer will steep through the previous one. All of those elements are on full display in the finished work.”
It’s Not Finished But I Am, 2022, latex paint and resin on wood panelImage: Courtesy of Morton Fine Art and Jenny Wu
The material, latex, has an inherent quality of being fragile, bound to throw challenges to visual artists who employ it as a key element. Wu confirms that in the early stages of her career as an artist, she found the crack extremely challenging, but gradually she learned to let the paint be—appreciating and embracing moments of imperfection. “I am also learning how different paint sheen, room temperature, and airflow can affect the cracking. Liquid latex paint might be fragile, but thick, dried latex paint is very dense and hard to cut by hand. My purlicue muscle has grown a lot on my right hand,” admits Wu.
Jenny WuImage: Courtesy of Morton Fine Art and Jenny Wu
Significantly, the titles of the sculptural paintings are central to the practice. Functioning as reflections of the methods Wu undertakes, to reorient the essentials of the material, for instance—Too Heavy to Carry to the British Museum; 70 Year Old Intern Waiting for His First Real Job; Hello to That One Person Who Nods Along Encouragingly During Presentations. Social networking sites such as Twitter, too, have been a source for the titles of the works. The humour and constructive value in the title of the art exhibition—Ai Yo! is unmissable. It carries regional expression and context, for the artist who hails from Nanjing in China, where the meaning of Ai Yo! is determined by a way of articulation, translating to anything between ‘impressed’ to ‘suspicious.’
Furthermore, when sculptural paintings are abstract and the titles are non-descriptive, Wu opines, “The idea that titles should create more space, and not point out the obvious, emerged a decade ago, when I bought house paint and came across paints named Va-Va Voom or Yeah Baby. The titles come from social media posts, usually comments on life in Washington D.C. at times having rings of academic or sometimes political. The titles function as a personal, minimal diary, emerging around the time I nearly finish a piece. Hello to That One Person Who Nods Along Encouragingly During Presentations is about appreciating that person and being that person for others.”
Jennny Wu at work
Video: Courtesy of Morton Fine Art and Jenny Wu
An artist and educator, Wu’s artistic practice is recognition of the ‘sensational and perceptual properties of materiality,’ only to recontextualise it in a new light to see the unseen. Wu is hopeful that the audience will see the intersections of maths and art while watching the sculptural paintings in the exhibition. Exploring patterns and moments of surprises within, experiencing the in-betweenness of painting and sculpture, exploring space from the physical work to its title, recalling the passing of time. “At the end of the day, I can have intentions and goals, but once you stand in front of the art, you are creating a new relationship between you and the work, and I can never be part of it,” shares Wu.
The exhibition Ai Yo! by Jenny Wu is on view at Morton Fine Art, Washington DC until March 8, 2023.
Writer and researcher, Dilpreet Bhullar shuttles between New Delhi and Mumbai, India. With an MPhil in Comparative Literature (University of Delhi), she has been the recipient of the Alliance for Historical Dialogue and Accountability Fellowship (Columbia University, New York) and International Centre For Advocates Against Discrimination Fellowship, New York. Her writings have appeared in Art Basel, Ocula, Routledge, criticalcollective.in, thirdtext.org, to name a few. Currently, she is the Editorial Manager of the magazine TAKE, which is dedicated to South Asian contemporary arts.
Second Nature is a curiously familiar solo exhibition of brand-new paintings on paper and canvas by artist Vonn Cummings Sumner. Familiar, that is, if you’re a follower of George Herriman’s influential comic strip character Krazy Kat and her unrequited love for brick-throwing Ignatz the Mouse.
Born of COVID-19, Sumner turned his pandemic loneliness to the form of Arizona’s most renowned “wandering avatar.” The seasons changed, the days turned into nights and nights into mornings, as Sumner imagined a 21st-century Krazy in verdant dales, wide-open spaces and art historical–seeded landscapes, evoking longing for a connection with nature without Ignatz, brick or jail in sight. Sumner’s sixth solo exhibition with the Morton gallery,Second Nature will be on view through April 8 at 52 O St. NW, #302, in Washington DC.
Introduced to Krazy Kat by his longtime mentor Wayne Thiebaud (1920–2021), reviving the character enabled Sumner to focus on existential concerns and painterly notions of color, composition, gesture and mark-making. “Lightened by the exhibition’s … moments of enigma, color and joy, Second Naturefinds Krazy Kat (and Sumner) on a heavy, if much-needed retreat.” The work’s employ of a familiar, beloved character can have that effect on all.
I very much enjoyed the following conversation with Sumner, if only to focus on something other than the strife caused by real (and fake) post-COVID ‘Merica. Second Nature is neither real nor fake, but it sure is refreshing.
Kat Hole, 2023. Oil on panel, 18 x 18in. Courtesy of Morton Fine Art and the artist
I’m assuming you are a comics fan. Or is it just Krazy Kat that captures your fascination? Yes, of course. I am a lifelong comics fan. My favorite, as a kid in the ’80s, was the X-Men. I also loved the Marvel Universe comic books that just had a page for each character. When I was a kid, I was making my own comics (which weren’t very good). My friends in elementary school were into it too. We would sit around and draw from comics together. We had subscriptions at the local comic book store, where we would go once a month when the new issues came out. I loved a lot of the weird stuff, though. From Mad Magazine’s comics to Groo the Wanderer. And there was one called Plop! Then I got older and discovered R. Crumb, and then Dark Horse Comics and other things. I was obsessed with Daniel Clowes for a while; he was very influential on me. Art Spiegelman, of course.
Melancholy Kat, 2022. Oil on panel, 18 x 18 in. Courtesy of Morton Fine Art and the artist
You remove Krazy’s cohorts from your work, substituting other artistic features like landscape and pattern. What is your motive for devoting your energies to transformation? It’s very appropriate that you use the word “transformation”— that feels right. This is hard to articulate, but I have this gut feeling that if I included Ignatz or Offisa Pup, then it would be a totally different kind of thing. I’m not interested in reenacting the comic strip literally; it’s more I feel connected to Krazy Kat, like Krazy is an old friend, a timeless soul. It’s like Krazy Kat comes from another time, but is also timeless somehow. As a painter, I am interested in the world as it is now; how we make beauty and meaning and life now. So I am trying to summon the spirit of Krazy Kat, to accompany me in this time and to see what happens in this context, here and now. Personally the fast few years have been a time of pretty intense transformation. And globally, of course, the past few years have been transformational (for better or worse). Krazy Kat comes from that world (of the strip) where things are transforming all the time, so this pairing feels appropriate somehow. Sometimes I think: What if Krazy Kat were the last being on earth? Or, what if Krazy Kat was the first of a new species, after a mass extinction? Sometimes I think of Krazy Kat almost like a child, mimicking what we do. None of it is that literal, of course, since it is a visual medium and I am working largely by following instincts, impulses, intuitions—trying to stay ahead of my rational mind so that the paintings remain a little bit of a mystery even to me. You are right, though, I am searching for some kind of transformation via Krazy Kat.
Your reinterpretation of Krazy Kat is an inspiring take on a classic character who is particularly associated by art historians with the early marriage of cartoon and modern art. Where did your passion for Krazy come from? I think that is part of why Krazy Kat feels right to me, to paint this character that is intertwined with the development of modern art in general, and especially in the U.S., the link to the Armory show of 1913. It’s all connected, artistically. My passion for Krazy comes from my time at UD Davis: I was an 18-year-old freshman, sitting in the back of Prof. Wayne Thiebaud’s ART 148/Theory & Criticism class. He started class one day with an image of one of the Krazy Kat comic strips projected up on the screen, and spoke with obvious affection for this odd, dense, unorthodox cartoon that had been beloved by painters: Willem de Kooning, Richard Diebenkorn, Picasso. That had a huge impact on me, being introduced to it that way, in that setting, at that impressionable stage.
River Bather, 2023. Acrylic on paper, 22.5 x 30.25 in. Courtesy of Morton Fine Art and the artist
You’ve captured the spirit of Krazy without copying the tropes. In your paintings, she is her own character in a new but not entirely alien landscape. Why did you adapt her in this way? What inspired you to take Krazy out of her natural environment? Long story short: I had been painting figures for several years, pretty realistically, and most of the time I was painting myself—or at least using my own body/face as a “figure” that I would costume in different ways. Eventually I got really sick of painting myself and needed a change. I painted a series of trashcans and dumpsters—often on fire—on sidewalks and alleys. In a few of those paintings, I included an ‘alley-cat’—again, realistically. One of my painter friends, Randall Cabe, was doing a studio visit with me. We were talking about those paintings and he said he really liked how the cats functioned like a “figure” to help bring the viewer into the space. He knew my love of Krazy Kat, and the connection to Thiebaud, and he said, “why not make that cat into Krazy Kat?” So I did it a couple of times, just to make my friend laugh. I painted Krazy Kat in the alley and on the sidewalk. Then I showed those first two paintings to Thiebaud and he said such interesting, encouraging things that I felt like it was worth exploring some more. Then the pandemic hit and it was during that first week or two of lockdown that it just seemed obvious/inevitable: a Krazy Kat for a crazy time.
Horse and Rider, 2023. Oil on canvas, 48 x 65 in. Courtesy of Morton Fine Art and the artist
You’ve also reconfigured Krazy, elongating her, seemingly taming her while maintaining the essence of the original (especially the ‘Z’ tail). She seems more mature. What went into your decision to create this physical type? I think it relates back to Herriman’s strip, actually: If you look at Krazy Kat from the beginning, around 1913 to the end in the early 1940s, there is quite a shift in how he draws Krazy. So that is built into the character, in a way—the ability to shift and change and transform. Again this all feels appropriate on a gut level. So then I was painting Krazy Kat—and partly it is just my own mistakes, or limitations, in trying to depict them—but at some point I will just go with it, and accept the way that I have painted them. And then that leads to the obvious question: Why not give Krazy a little more anatomy/structure? All the countless hours that I put in drawing from the model then comes into play. I kind of can’t help but make Krazy a little bit more “human.” To do otherwise, to just be totally faithful to the cartoon, would be too “cute” in my opinion. I am not going for cute. I am interested in the human-animal hybrid tradition of art, going back to the caves, the Lion-Man Hohlenstein-Stadel sculpture, all the way through the great Egyptian versions, the Hindu and Buddhist versions. I’m very interested in Krazy Kat as a kind of modern extension of that tradition—the human/animal hybrid is one of the oldest and most popular themes in the history of art, and that is definitely part of the point of the whole project for me.
What’s Up Kat…, 2023. Acrylic on paper, 22.5 x 30.25 in. Courtesy of Morton Fine Art and the artist
I love the nuanced and overt parodies (especially the Bugs Bunny reference). When Herriman drew Krazy there was wit and humor but not parody per se. What are you saying about art, life, comics and existence through your Krazy Kat? Thank you. I hadn’t thought of it like that yet. That is a really interesting question. I think that has to do with the times—the difference between Modern and Postmodern, perhaps? But also it has to do with the medium: A cartoon strip has its history/language/conventions and a painting has its history/language/conventions. I hold humor very high in the hierarchy of artistic values. And Thiebaud used to say that an artwork without a sense of humor was probably lacking a sense of perspective. So on a very basic level, I take humor very seriously, and I trust it: If a painting can make me laugh, that is enough. I trust that. As for larger messages or explanations, I think that is better left up to each viewer.
How long will you continue to make this otherworldly Krazy Kat? As long as it feels right. I don’t have a set timeline or anything. Painting, art, etc., doesn’t run on the clock. Sometimes I like to think that Krazy Kat is with me, visiting me, like a spirit or a muse. These are the things that artists should never talk about, haha! We get very carried away.
Krazy Desert, 2021–2023. Oil on panel, 18 x 18 in. Courtesy of Morton Fine Art and the artist
I own a latter-day daily original (four-panel) Krazy Kat, hanging on the wall in front of me. It seems like Herriman drew it on the fly. In fact, I think he’d disavow it now. How do you think Herriman would take to your interpretations? Wow, that is really cool, I would love to see it. Wayne had some originals in his collection, which he showed to me. In addition to the amazingly skillful drawing, of course, I was struck by how big they were!
As for your very interesting question, that is very funny to contemplate! The greatest compliment, of course, would be to get his positive stamp of approval. But he might take issue with all of the liberties that I am taking! I understand that Herriman himself did some plein-air painting in the Southwest, and was a great admirer of painting, of course. I think he even did a painting or two of Krazy Kat? He was very hard on himself, very humble and self-depricating. My hope is that, at least, Herriman would see that I have genuine respect and affection for Krazy. But as a painter, I also have to be willing to offend, make mistakes, do it ‘wrong.’ That is the spirit of freedom that Herriman infused the Krazy Kat comic strip with, so I hope he would understand.
Moments after finishing the interview, Vonn sent in a bonus response. . . I’m still thinking about those questions and wanted to pass along some thoughts spurred by our conversation.
We are wired, it seems, to want to think of the world as stable and knowable—but of course it’s not. Everything is changing all the time, and we actually seem to know very little. Krazy Kat seems fine with that changability, that instability. I’m trying to learn from Krazy, in a way, trying to absorb that ability to accept and navigate the instability of life. Humans like to convince ourselves that we know what we’re doing and we make all kinds of laws and rules and systems to reinforce that illusion; which, of course, is the human-folly that Herriman was commenting on in a very sophisticated way, with humor and affection and almost unparalleled inventiveness. That is very appealing to me, that kind of theater of the absurd. I loved Beckett and all of the more contemporary things influenced by his work, including Bugs Bunny and Charlie Brown. The Great Pumpkin is like Waiting for Godot for children! So I do think that very serious and profound ideas can be approached through things like cartoons and comics and paintings. It’s all about the human-scale, the intention. I’m wary of getting too pretentious, and it’s also probably folly to ask too much of paintings, but these are some of the things I think about. Albert Camus said something to the effect of “humans are the only animal that doesn’t know what it is”—Krazy Kat is like that, somehow. The tension is that humans seem very uncomfortable with that uncertainty, while Krazy Kat seems perfectly fine with it.
Steven Heller has written for PRINT since the 1980s. He is co-chair of SVA MFA Designer as Entrepreneur. The author, co-author and editor of over 200 books on design and popular culture, Heller is also the recipient of the Smithsonian Institution National Design Award for “Design Mind,” the AIGA Medal for Lifetime Achievement and other honors. He was a senior art director at The New York Times for 33 years and a writer of obituaries and book review columnist for the newspaper, as well. His memoir, Growing Up Underground (Princeton Architectural Press) was published in 2022. Some of his recent essays are collected in For the Love of Design (Allworth Press).
Courtesy of Morton Fine Art, Photo credit: Jarrett Hendrix
Once a warehouse, the unassuming brick building sitting in the corner of NoMa on 52 O Street is now home to a variety of art studios and galleries. One of them is Morton Fine Art, which just launched Ai Yo!, a selection of 21 sculptural paintings by artist Jenny Wu. The gallery is spacious and well lit, and the walls are decked with Wu’s colorful works. I was not entirely sure what a sculptural painting entailed, but I was curious to learn more.
“Hundreds of people came for the opening day,” Amy Morton, curator of Morton Fine Art, said. I can see why: the works are fun and unconventional. Wu creates her art by pouring layers of latex paint on top of each other, a technique that she told the Voice took her almost a decade of trial and error to develop. Once the layers have dried—a process which can take up to four months—Wu slices the sheets into varying sizes and meticulously rearranges them on top of a wooden panel to create patterns. She then applies a resin coating over the whole contraption to add a glossy finish. The result is many colorful, mosaic-esque creations of varying color schemes and patterns.
Wu’s creative combination of painting and sculpture makes her work quite the treat to see in person, as one can more closely see the textures and topography created by the latex chunks. The drying and cutting process leads to cracks and imperfections in the individual latex units, meaning no two fragments are identical.
“The paint crinkles quickly, and the liquid paint becomes something I can hold,” Wu said.
The centimeter-sized latex cube sample Morton hands me to examine resembles a vibrant chunk of sedimentary rock or a soil specimen. It has the quiet elasticity of a bouncy ball or firm eraser. Considering that Wu uses these three dimensional units to create her visual art as opposed to a more traditional medium like paint, it is clear “sculptural painting” is an apt term to describe her work. By using these latex layers as her instrument of creation, Wu liquifies the boundaries between the two media.
“They really need to be experienced in person, because it is very hard to capture the textures and colors with just a photo,” Morton said.
Regarding the title of the exhibit, Wu explains that the phrase Ai Yo! is an interjection used in many different situations in her hometown in China, from communicating feelings of awe to displeasure.
“The meaning depends on the context. It is both general and specific,” Wu said. “I think most human beings, when they look at those four letters together, they can pronounce it in some way, even if they don’t speak Chinese. You can pronounce it any way you want, as long as it adds emotion.”
The inclusive and welcoming nature of the exhibit title leaves a lot of space for viewers to interpret the pieces, proving that Wu’s art is something that transcends language barriers.
After going to graduate school at American University, Wu found that there were more galleries and organizations focused on promoting smaller artists here in D.C. compared to other places. Given the political and international significance of D.C., Morton remarks that it’s “important to keep the conversation expanding through art and push museum tipping points.” Galleries like Morton Fine Arts and the artists that they partner with are critical in continuing to expand the boundaries of art and make meaningful statements about the world we live in.
Wu’s mission complements that of Morton Fine Art curator Amy Morton’s well, resulting in a synergistic collaboration. Morton chooses her artist partners with careful deliberation, looking for “substantive artwork that is both timeless and timely.” Wu’s work fits the bill, leaving a lasting impression through the unique medium and jarring titles. The political overtones of her work reflect aspects of the local cultural climate, arising naturally out of the close proximity to Capitol Hill. Both Morton and Wu agree that the D.C. art scene is not as bustling or developed as, say, New York City, but the city is fertile ground for emerging artists.
The artwork titles are equally delightful and thought-provoking as the visual components. Wu draws inspiration for these creative titles from Twitter, Instagram, and other forms of social media. “I want my titles to be more abstract, rather than purely descriptive, so they can create more space,” says Wu.
Though all of these pieces are abstract, their titles provide much food for thought that prompts the onlooker to think about the pieces more deeply. Some titles are humorous, like “70 Year Old Intern Waiting for His First Real Job” (2022). For this piece, Wu has arranged long warm toned strips with slices of green in the middle into hexagons, juxtaposing the chaos of the latex strips with the order of the polygons for a sense of contained frustration. Others are damning, like “Spent $50.4 Million on TV Ads to Brag About Giving Local Businesses A Total of $100,000” (2022). This piece is an amalgamation of small red, white, and blue pieces that emanates a more chaotic, overtly political energy.
“Ruthkanda Forever” (2022) and “Carefully Editing an Email Response” (2021) stand out in particular. The latex layers that make up “Ruthkanda Forever” are varying shades of blue with the occasional yellow stripe, arranged in a lightly undulating formation. From a distance, the piece looks like gently rolling ocean waters reflecting moonlight, which, when combined with the title, perhaps represents how our collective pop culture consciousness has digested and lionized RBG and the Black Panther franchise. “Carefully Editing an Email Response” features paint strata delicately arranged in tessellating hexagons, resembling the rigid and meticulous process of combing through a professional email for typos. Other interesting titles include “$1200 That Should Be More Than Enough” (2022) and “I Will Not Get Bit By Capitol Fox” (2022). Georgetown students are sure to get a kick out of the latter, considering the heavy political preprofessional inclinations of the general community.
One way Wu pushes artistic boundaries is by exploring different usages of color.
“Right now, the way I choose colors is more based on the aesthetic. Like, if I do some purple with some blue, a little hint of orange might look good in there based on the similarity of the colors. But I want to explore more ways of combining colors and patterns together,” Wu said.
Whatever direction Wu takes her work in, she will continue to push boundaries and set new creative benchmarks. Any vaguely art-curious Georgetown students should be sure to take advantage of the opportunities we have in DC and explore the unique flavors of local art here.
Christine Ji Christine is a senior in the MSB majoring in Finance and minoring in History. She harbors unhinged opinions on goldfish, Garfield, and The Strokes.
Morton Fine Art is pleased to announce Ai Yo!, a solo exhibition of sculpturalpaintings by artist Jenny Wu. Continuing an innovative latex paint and time-based practice theartist has been implementing for nearly a decade, Ai Yo! features Wu further exploringcomposition, color, expertise, control, chance and surprise—favoring discovery over mastery.Long interested in tactility, in-betweenness, embodiedness, and construction (Wu has abackground in architectural studies), the exhibition questions our basic assumptions about whatpaintings and sculptures can be. Wu’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, Ai Yo!, will be on viewfrom February 8 – March 8, 2023.
Ai Yo! Sculptural Paintings by JENNY WU February 8th – March 8th, 2023 Opening reception 4-6pm on Saturday, February 11th, 2023. The artist will be in attendance. Please RSVP to info@mortonfineart.com.
Contact the gallery for viewing by appointment, price list, additional information and acquisition. (202) 628-2787 (call or text)info@mortonfineart.com
It’s Not Finished But I Am, 2022, 36″x24″x2.5″, latex paint and resin on wood panel
Briefly Inhabit a Fictional World, 2022, 18″x18″x2.5″, latex paint and resin on wood panel
About Ai Yo!
Underpinned by transformation and embodying time, material characteristics and chance, Wu’s sculptural paintings operate as both built objects and records (of labor, gesture, accident). Generating degrees of liminality, Wu’s body of work is an engine to multiplicity. To create each work, Wu pours thick coats of latex paint onto silicone surfaces, allowing each layer to dry completely before adding another layer of latex in turn to dry. The results are rich and vividly varied strata of dried paint, which Wu then cuts to reveal layers of colorful cross-sections, often touched by chance elements like cracking. Using these cross-sections as her base units, Wu assembles her paintings, building up relief and composition—piece by piece—on wood panels. Both the cross-sections and their eventual sculptural forms veer towards an order out of serendipity and planning. Following prearranged patterns, Wu erects pulsing grid-forms and mesmerizing reliefs of playful, shimmering paint, completed with a top coat of glossy resin to amplify her vibrant palette. Transforming latex paint from its original, liquid form—before fashioning it within new contexts and forms—the artworks acknowledge an abiding passion for the sensational and perceptual properties of materiality. 70 Year Old Intern Waiting for His First Real Job, 2022, 36″x24″x2.5″, latex paint and resin on wood panel
The Analysis is Severely Limited By My Lack of Understanding What I Am Doing, 2022, 36″x24″x2.5″, latex paint and resin on wood panel
Titles play an important role in Wu’s practice, in some cases mirroring her process of cutting and rearranging layered materials: Too Heavy to Carry to the British Museum(2022);70 Year Old Intern Waiting for His First Real Job(2022); Hello to That One Person Who Nods Along Encouragingly During Presentations(2022). Sourcing her titles from Twitter (including a number of Donald Trump’s tweets, an approach that ended in 2020), Wu’s titling compounds the humorous and constructive elements explored in Ai Yo!, the meaning of which too is both layered and specific. A regional expression in Nanjing, China, Wu’s hometown, “Ai Yo”’s meaning depends on how you say it, ranging from “impressed” to “suspicious.” Existing only as an expression, there is no character for “Ai Yo”; it can only be said and spoken. Unfixed and open, “Ai Yo” accrues yet an additional context in Wu’s selection of it as her exhibition’s title.
Hello to That One Person Who Nods Along Encouragingly During Presentations, 2022, 36″x12″x.25″, latex paint and resin on wood panel
Balancing clarity and surprise, Ai Yo! is the result of countless juxtapositions and an expanding set of contexts.
Jenny Wu is an artist and educator. She is currently a visiting assistant professor of fine art at Trinity College in Hartford, CT. Wu’s work acknowledges the sensational and perceptual properties of materiality and then transforms the materials from their original forms and purpose to present them within new contexts. Her work has been reviewed by the Washington Post. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums including Katzen Museum, Huntington Museum of Art, Reece Museum, Vilnius Academy of Arts in Lithuania, and CICA Museum in South Korea. Wu has participated in numerous Artist-In-Residence programs across the country; and has been awarded fellowships from Vermont Studio Center and the Pollock Krasner Foundation. Wu was born in Nanjing, China. She holds a B.A. from William Smith College in Studio Art as well as in Architectural Studies, and an M.F.A. in Studio Art from American University. She has been represented by Morton Fine Art since 2021.
About Morton Fine Art
Founded in 2010 in Washington, DC by curator Amy Morton, Morton Fine Art (MFA) is a fine artgallery and curatorial group that collaborates with art collectors and visual artists to inspire freshways of acquiring contemporary art. Firmly committed to the belief that art collecting can becultivated through an educational stance, MFA’s mission is to provide accessibility to museum-quality contemporary art through a combination of substantive exhibitions and a welcomingplatform for dialogue and exchange of original voice. Morton Fine Art specializes in a stellarroster of nationally and internationally renowned artists as well as has an additional focus onartwork of the African and Global Diaspora. Morton Fine Art founded the trademark *a pop-up project in 2010. *a pop-up project is MFA’smobile gallery component which hosts temporary curated exhibitions nationally.
Morton Fine Art: curator's notes 