February 19-25, 2004

art

Personal Velocity

Sarah McEneaney, Taxing (2003), 36 inches by 48 inches, egg tempera on wood.

In her first solo museum show, Sarah McEneaney paints the simple pleasures -- and pains -- of everyday life.

by Susan Hagen

In a massive mid-career retrospective exhibition at the ICA, Philadelphia artist Sarah McEneaney's accomplishments are now being recognized. McEneaney's detailed and jewel-like egg tempera paintings, along with a handful of small sculptures, fill the cavernous upper galleries at the ICA and activate the space with a dense condensation of experience and emotion. The show includes more than 60 works made between 1986 and 2003, and is accompanied by an excellent catalog.

Out of the many themes that run through McEneaney's work, one of the most persistent is the relationship of her own art and life. The paintings are mapped out experientially -- rather than within the formulaic framework of perspective -- and chart the events of daily life and its little (and big) tragedies. They are done from life and in life. Dirty dishes fill the sink in Morning (2003), while the artist portrays herself standing up in a nearby doorway reading the newspaper. In Self-Inflicted Portrait (1987), McEneaney sheepishly displays her large bandaged hand. In Alpha Dog (1990), she shows only her hands holding a tiny dog with wheat-colored fur and soft limp paws. It's unbearably sad -- to anyone who has ever mourned a pet -- and yet visually beautiful, painted with tenderness and precision. Other pieces capture day-to-day life, blizzards, meteor showers and the aftermath of a violent crime with the same kind of impartial detail.

It really is the details, which McEneaney renders with a microscopic truthfulness, that make these paintings so captivating. The plethora of detail adds up to a painted world that is a neater, more intricate version of our own world. Views of urban Philadelphia appear in a number of paintings, including Wishful Graffiti (1994), which shows a defaced billboard and tiny cigarette butts in the gutter. In Trestletown (2001), the same location has been transformed into a community garden with tiny vegetables and flowers. Another painting, Wissahickon (2000), details a time-lapse narrative about an ordinary walk in the woods with an exuberant dog. In the distance, the artist is empty-handed, and in the foreground she, responsibly, carries a poop bag. Other paintings record perfect moments, epiphanies, and in one case the shocking moment when she sees that her world has changed forever. With intricate precision, McEneaney has painted herself perched at the edge of her seat in an empty NJT car just as the Manhattan skyline -- seen without the World Trade Towers for the first time -- comes into view.

Sarah McEneaney, No Stadium (2000), 16 1/2 inches by 12 1/2 inches, egg tempera on wood.

Other paintings enumerate the more intimate details of daily life, suggesting a lineage from the history of the female nude and genre painting. One painting shows the artist doing a monthly breast exam in the shower. The room has a bright pink ceiling, black floor and green rug, and the patterns on the transparent shower curtain seem to diagram the spiral movement of a correctly executed breast exam. In Mineral Bath One (1995), she reclines in a large tub of greenish blue water with her eyes closed, her long hair floating and tiny bubbles covering her body. This nude, along with her surroundings and pleasures, seems to exist only for her own benefit -- although McEneaney portrays herself almost like an angular, Byzantine saint in a modern world. Many other paintings offer similar visions of self-possession, imbued with more than a hint of loneliness. On the other end of the spectrum is the icon-like self-portrait No Stadium (2000). Here McEneaney represents herself as an enthusiastic community activist, wielding a cell phone and a sign-the-petition binder.

Besides its potent emotional content, charm and well-developed ideas, McEneaney's work is significant for its thorough technique. She mixes her own gesso from powdered limestone and rabbit-skin glue and prepares paint from egg yolk and powdered pigment. Her skill with egg tempera results in lovely jewel-tone colors and shadowless forms that seem illuminated from within. The work of painting provides McEneaney with a theme as well as a technique, and many paintings offer glimpses into her day-to-day studio practice. In Dance and Paint (1989), she paints herself interrupting her labors to dance around the studio -- which is dotted with real, not painted, drips of paint -- while being watched by a tiny dog and an orange cat. Later, in Separation (2001), observed by a more recent set of pets, she slips an egg yolk out of its skin into a bowl. These paintings remind us that the roots of Western contemporary painting are in the traditions of medieval manuscript illumination and Renaissance panel painting, and that until not very long ago painters considered themselves craftsmen.

While viewing McEneaney's many paintings in this impressive exhibition, time seems to slip through our fingers as animals come and go, breasts are examined, buildings fall down, gardens are planted and the laborious work of the artist goes on. Yet, paradoxically, time stands still. These beautifully detailed paintings, suffused with loneliness and optimism, are a delight to experience.

Sarah McEneaney

Through April 4, Institute of Contemporary Art, 118 S. 36th St., 215-898-5911

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