When I walked out of Genesis, the Foster Gallery’s most recent exhibit, I imagine I felt like Wendy or Michael did upon leaving Neverland. For a brief moment, I belonged to a captivating world of monsters and magical underwater creatures. Unfortunately, it had to end, and I was required to return to my grown-up world of depressingly colorless textbooks.
Most of the illustrations featured in Genesis are taken from books in which the artist also served as author. Although all artists created material for similar genres and age groups, the worlds they fashioned are vastly different.
David Wiesner, whose book Flotsam I had admired prior to the gallery event, is a master of watercolor. With “Cloud Dispatch Center,” he demonstrated what I had previously believed was impossible with the medium – that clouds can be fluffy, grainy, or even misty. Again, in a series of paintings from his book, The Three Pigs, he showed that one could use watercolor to depict a sharply detailed pig with bristled hair leaping from the page. His scenes from Flotsam were delightfully vibrant, and his admitted love for Salvador Dali was evident in the surreal steampunk-goes-underwater compositions.
My favorite exhibit featured work from the artist Shaun Tan. His was the only collection that wasn’t in love with bubbly color; rather, the bulk of his artwork consisted of graphite sketches, and the only pieces with color were wonderfully morose. The graphite drawings were soft, almost hushed, and no definite lines were used; the varying shadow tones were the only indicator of contour. Many of the illustrations were from his wordless book, The Arrival, which I will definitely be checking it out when it is available at Eau Claire’s public library.
Whereas illustrations from artists like Tan required no accompanying text, the artwork of William Joyce didn’t speak for itself at all. The compositions were unfocused and scattered; my eye simply didn’t know where to rest and became bored quickly.
The final artists, Adam Rex and James Gurney, both had a talent for taking something terrifying and making it enchanting. Adam Rex’s illustrations were lively and eclectic, populated entirely with various creatures, factual and fantastical. His monsters were so whimsical I half-hoped to find them under my bed that night. James Gurney’s brilliant mastery of color was simply awe-inspiring. In his featured paintings from the Dinotopia books, I believed I was viewing colors I had never seen before.
Do your inner child a favor and check out this delightful array of dinosaurs, circus animals, sea turtle villages, vengeful trees and futuristic snowball fights. It will leave you wanting nothing more than to run home, dig out your battered copy of Where the Wild Things Are, and escape into a fort of pillows and bed sheets.
The Foster Gallery is located in the Haas Fine Arts building. Genesis is on display until February 18. For more information, visit http://www.uwec.edu/Art/foster/index.htm.
