The Brooklyn Rail

A matrix of 108 portraits by Doug Safranek gaze benevolently at the viewer from the entrance to the gallery. The initial impression is that of thumbnail scale images, though on closer investigation, each is a detailed rendering which sparkles with the colorful intensity of the egg tempera medium. Safranek’s portraits are employed as the focal point of a multimedia storytelling exhibition, and in that capacity they serve well as objects to meditate on as we listen to the audio narratives playing in succession in the space. One of the aims of a curator in this particular time in which we live is to slow people down: if it isn’t over in a matter of seconds, and hasn’t delivered its punch line almost instantly, we lose interest. The storytelling aspect of the exhibition, created by Murray Nossel, doesn’t rely on instant gratification, but the slow build-up of the individual speaker’s description of characters and details, the tones of their voice, and the idiosyncrasies of their personalities shining through—these are shaggy dog stories, not one-liners. Safranek’s portraits offer a differing narrative of aesthetic choices, but combined with the voices (set to soundscapes composed by Barbara Gogan and Marco Dianese) in the background, the visual and the audio work symbiotically in order to lull the visitor into a state receptive to the investigation of something as universal, but universally overlooked in the contemporary art world, as motherhood.

Safranek’s egg tempera portraits in the main gallery space are slightly-larger-than-life, square-framed passport photo poses. Egg-tempera colors—think medieval Sienese altarpieces—are a bit too poppy and heightened to be photo-real. Safranek’s paintings are wonderfully accurate, but not nearly as harsh as Chuck Close or other hyper-real artists like Ron Mueck or Duane Hanson. The skin tones are more luminous than life, and the blues, pinks, and yellows in the sitter’s apparel seem to glow: what worked so effectively to depict saints in the middle ages works just as well to beatify the individuals from the Sugar Hill neighborhood in Harlem who lent their stories and voices to the show. There is also a wonderful New York City-specific game afoot. As one listens to the speakers, perambulating around the room looking at all these different faces of different ages, genders, and ethnicities, you try to pin the story to the speaker, and it is pretty much impossible—which is reassuring in a “We Are The World” kind of way (a screen which translates the stories from English to Spanish lists the first name of the speaker, and this can then be collated with an image in the exhibition guide, but that takes time!).

Safranek’s hand comes through in the paintings, in the form of tiny, delicate, and meticulous brush strokes, which construct the contours of a face on a micro-level. Egg tempera dries fast, so using these feather-like units to form an image is a time-honored tradition in the craft. Safranek’s brushstrokes work particularly well to highlight the hand-stitched flowers on Mme. Ofelia’s earrings or Maribel’s blouse. The matte and vibrant pigments also seem perfectly titrated to highlight detail—the gold buttons on the shoulders of Meldis’s sweater, or Emily and Rachel’s slightly edgy earrings—perhaps favorites chosen to be worn while having their portraits painted? This combination of painted detail combined with the sometimes cheerful, often melancholy tales floating in the air of the gallery puts one in a decidedly sentimental mood. Those little things—the floral stitching on a blouse that we feel against our cheek, mom’s favorite dangly earrings that we always tries to grab—are some of the earliest and most visceral memories we have from childhood, and are often the most powerful recollections we have of our mothers; again reminding us of the necessity of slowing down and listening to these stories.