The final draft of my blog for the Toonseum after I got my boss to edit it.
David LeBlanc: Expression of Heroes
This December the Toonseum will be featuring an exciting new artist David LeBlanc. Leblanc's exhibit New Action Evolution puts a new spin of the comic book super heroes we have grown to know and love. At an early age Leblanc became enamored with comics which stuck with him as he pursued his education in the arts at Dartmouth/UMass, earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Illustration 1989 and his Masters in Education, 2004. Early in his career Leblanc became one of the founding members of the Western Avenue Studios community in Boston where he still remains today as his collection and reputation grows.
Leblanc's exhibit New Action Evolution touches on the genres of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. The term Abstract Expressionism first sprang up in the streets of New York in the 1940’s and 50’s. The new artistic movement also known as the New York School or Action Painting, was not defined to one style. They ranged from Jackson Pollock’s action paintings to William Dekooning’s fierce use of the human figure and even Mark Rothko’s large and overpowering use of color on the canvas.
The artists of this new movement used many different techniques within their works but what they one thing they had in common was their use of spontaneity and improvisation. By breaking away from the more familiar and conservative forms of past art, they were able to dive into their own human psyche. As WW2 ended so did the period of the Abstract Expressionists making way for a new style into the art world, Pop Art.
Pop art originally began in Britain in the 1950’s, quickly making its way to the shores of America during the 1960’s. Where the artists of the Abstract Expressionism Movement were concerned with nature and delving into the human psyche, the Pop Art movement stepped outside of the mind and took inspiration from social culture, embracing the media boom that came after WW2 utilizing newspapers, advertising and comics as inspiration.
Robert Rauschenberg was one of the first artists to help establish some of the characteristics of the Pop Art movement by gaping the bridge between the worlds of Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art. Rauschenberg melded the spontaneity of the Abstract Expressionism movement with the imagery and social influence of the Pop Art movement. Rauschenberg's influence trashed the traditional norms that had been set in place, bringing back imagery and blurring the edges between what was then classified as high and low art.
Another Pop Artist and probably one of the most influential and well-known pop artist of our time was Andy Warhol. Warhol like many other of the pop artists first started out as a commercial artist. Moving to New York from Pittsburgh PA, Warhol began working as an illustrator for newspapers and magazines and continued with this career until around 1960. It was then that Warhol left to pursue his career on his own, creating some of his most iconic works in the history of Pop art.
It was between these two eras that another genre burst into the spotlight, Comic books. Comics had been around long before these two art forms appeared, but it was in the late 30's that it became the began the Golden Age in the comic book world. The golden age introduced us to many of the super heroes we know today. For example, the first Action Comic had the now famous Superman on it’s cover in 1938 . Other legendary characters such as Wonder Woman, Batman and Captain America also originated at this time.
The Silver Age which came after WW2, in the 1950's, helped establish the value of comics and brought with it some of the most influential creators and artists of the comics world such as Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Neal Adams. During The Bronze Age, beginning around the 1970s and continuing through the 1980’s, kept many of the traditional superhero titles of the past periods but moved to more dark and real world problems for the hero’s to face.
Then we enter the Modern Age of comics, also referred to as The Dark Age which started in the 1980s and is still going strong today. The Dark Age has introduced several darker and more complex characters such as Watchmen. Also, the amount of independent comics and graphic novel publishers have flourished and their creators have become more well know within the industry.
With influence stemming from Jackson Pollock to Andy Warhol, David Leblanc combined his love of both the Abstract Expressionists, Pop Artists and the world of Comics to create yet another whirling action adventure through art. Taking a cue from Robert Rauschenberg, David uses not just his brush to create his works but also uses clips from comics, photos and drawings to create more depth and movement throughout the pieces. Unlike Rauschenberg, Leblanc gives only a hint of what lies underneath his fast, thick brush strokes, allowing for only a glimpse of the pop media hidden beneath. Leblanc's New Action Evolution exhibit effortlessly fuses Leblanc's own psyche to his audiences super hero alter egos with larger than life paintings for life sized entertainment. Come to the Toonseum December 8th, 2012 at 7:30pm to meet LeBlanc in person for the opening of New Action Evolution.
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