ARTICLE
Cotuit Center for the Arts presents an exhibit of works by Richard Whitten and Matt Brand/Zintaglio Arts September 23 through October 28. There will be a talk with the artists at 5 PM on Saturday, September 23, followed by a reception until 7 PM. Richard Whitten’s intriguing and imaginative images are carefully planned and meticulously detailed, precisely rendered on individually shaped wood panels, yet mysterious and playful. At first glance, his paintings look three-dimensional, like sculpture or wood carvings, with spaces receding into the distance, intricate mechanical devices on the verge of movement, and colorful spheres seemingly balancing on the surfaces of his work. “They’re almost not paintings,” Whitten said in a video discussion of his work. “I want the viewer to have almost a physical journey from the object into the painting into the sense of the painting, and then into the illusion of the painting. I want them to be sucked in to a world they can explore and play in.” Growing up in Manhattan, Whitten was a frequent visitor to art museums, preferring sculpture over paintings because “they were the thing itself,” not “pictures of things.” But space was an issue in his family’s apartment, so he focused on painting. After receiving a degree in economics and math at Yale, he went on to earn an MFA at University of California at Davis. “I wasn’t excited about painting until I discovered the Abstract Expressionists because then painting is an object,” said Whitten. Finding the rectangular form too restrictive, Whitten combines wooden panel shapes to reflect the nature of his paintings. To ensure accuracy in his optical illusions, Whitten makes detailed drawings first. Then he builds models to study the perspective and to see exactly how the shadows fall. Finally, he creates the painting. Whitten compares the process to playing. “Playing is about experimenting about how to live. The most important thing we can do is fiddle with something,” he said. Mistakes are part of the process, he said. We learn from our mistakes and then go on to make a new set of mistakes to learn from. His paintings, he said, set up problems that he works through. Whitten has had numerous exhibitions on both coasts, including major solo exhibitions at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, the Newport Art Museum in Newport, Rhode Island, and the University of Maine Museum of Art. He is a professor of painting and art department chair at Rhode Island College. “Phantasmagoria” by Matt Brand features his Specular Holograms—microscopically textured metal plates that reflect three-dimensional phantoms, and Lumographic Lenses—irregularly ground optics that rearrange sunbeams into morphing faces. The exhibit title, “Phantasmagoria,” was a form of horror theater that used one or more magic lanterns to project frightening images, such as skeletons, demons, and ghosts onto walls, smoke, or semi-transparent screens. Brand, a research scientist and the founder of Zintaglio Arts, was inspired by research psychologist Roger Shepard, who wrote, "I like to caricature perception as externally guided hallucination, and dreaming and hallucination as internally simulated perception.” “Across many sciences, the idea has been a fertile generator of delightful experiments,” said Brand. “As a way of sharing the fun, I like to develop new kinds of ‘external guidance,’ then figure out how to make them work artistically. The imagery in this show is dynamic, ephemeral, and more visible to your mind’s eye than it is to a camera; as befits our times, what you see depends on where you stand and what you are looking for.” Zintaglio Arts specializes in public and museum art installations that exploit physical and perceptual phenomena to produce unexpected experiences. Brand explains the origins of “Zintaglio.” “We get the illusion of Z (depth) from scintilla (glints) on intaglio (carved surfaces). Say that fast enough and you get zintaglio.” Brand’s research into the mechanisms underlying learning, perception, and control has led to several industrially successful technologies, over 100 scientific publications and technical patents, and uncountable manipulated images on the web. There is no charge for admission. The gallery is open 10 AM to 4 PM daily through Columbus Day and Monday through Saturday after Columbus Day. Exhibits may also be viewed during evening events at the Center. For more information, visit artsonthecape.org, or call 508-428-0669. Cotuit Center for the Arts is at 4404 Route 28 in Cotuit.