FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1998 All Rights Reserved.
| VISUAL ARTS Exhibit review Led by a spike-haired, corseted ringmistress and her companions - "Swirly Girl," "Cone Boy" the transsexual, and others - the forces of goodness square off in the circus arena of the soul against the powers of darkness and destruction. It sounds like a new Heavy Metal movie and - with its bevy of brazen, leather-clad babes and diabolical villains - almost looks like one. But, in fact, it's Charles Malinsky's intriguing series of fantasy-realist paintings, Black Circus, which presents the quirky horror and eroticism of a Clive Barker novel. Malinsky, who teaches advertising art at ACAD, bases his large oil paintings on studio sketches he makes of his wife and numerous other costumed models, mainly actors and entertainers. "My paintings always tell the same stories," explains the 42-year-old Calgary artist. "They're about the exchange of power on many different levels: in your marriage, at work, with your parents, among nations. In short, the politics of life." Born in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, Malinsky first learned about art from his dad, a salesman who loved to draw. He went on to study at ACAD and became a successful commercial artist, but during the '80s decided to become a full-time painter. At one point, Malinsky found himself knocking off dozens of "truly terrible" neo-expressionist paintings, so he abandoned his art books and magazines and began doing his own thing. It took him about six years to work his way through to the current cycle of paintings which started with his Angels series. The circus idea, he says, sprang from several sources, including Fellini films and one of his students who turned him on to the big top and its close-knit subculture. Surprisingly (when you consider his nonconventional imagery), Malinsky has sold his work to everyone from a restaurateur to a psychiatrist, and (perhaps not surprisingly) the paintings often end up in the purchasers' bedrooms. Malinsky admits he's not a colorist and his paintings look a lot like drawings; nevertheless, his black-and-white chiaroscuro technique is removed from reality and promotes the magical feel of an old etching or movie. His best pieces are often the bigger paintings that feature a throng of performers posed theatrically - as if on a stage set - revealing themselves, their connections to each other, and roles within the circus. One such work shows "Cone Boy" (sporting a makeshift bra of two conical party hats), his legs spread suggestively apart, being joyously propelled skyward on a test-your-strength carnival device by a sledgehammer-swinging circus stronglady. It's an incredible image: funny, bizarre, chock-full of symbolic meaning. Interestingly, Malinsky has created a complete plot scenario for his painting series. There's a narrative, which has the denizens of hell sabotaging and seizing control of the circus over the next couple of years. And, as well as the four main characters - the ringmistress, the lion tamer and her amputee assistant, the knife-juggling trickster, and the devil/magician - Malinsky has created a Byzantine ensemble of bit players ranging from the vampish "Mad Accordionist" and "Puppet Boy" (who literally plays monkey to the organ grinder) to the virtuous circus animals. "People can relate to the fantastic nature of it," comments Malinsky. "They're still pictures about you and me and things we care about - problems we have, our lovers and phobias and so on. I don't see how you can make pictures without that." |