This November The Toonseum will be featuring an exciting new
artist into its halls. David LaBlanc will be showing Action Abstract, a new
take of the comic book characters we have grown to know and love. Beginning at
and early age David’s love for comics flourished and continued with him as he
perused his education in the arts at Dartmouth/UMass, earning a Bachelor of Fine
Arts Degree in Illustration 1989 and his Masters in Education, 2004. Later David became one of the found
members of the Western Avenue Studios community, where he still maintains a
studio pursuing his growing career as an artist, looking at past periods in the
art world such as Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art to help fuel his passion.
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. Although many of the ar tists showed different techniques
within their works the artists of this new movement did share many common
views. The artists broke away from
the more familiar and conservative forms of subject matter, instead diving 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 Abstract
Expressionist were concerned with nature and delving into the human psyche, Pop
Art immersed itself within human culture, embracing the media boom that came
after WW2, looking to such things as newspapers, advertising, and comics. Robert
Rauschenberg was one of the first artists to help establish some of the aspects
that pertained to the movement, Pop Art. Being a bridge between the two worlds,
using the expressive and “action” movements coined by the Abstract
Expressionists and the imagery and involvement of the media that came with the
Pop Artists. Rauschenberg truly
helped to propel the 60’s into the arms of the pop artists and helped inspire
many of their works .Pop art in a sense made a giant U turn within the art
world. Trashing 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. 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 Warhol went in his pursuit of his career
as an artist, creating some of his most iconic works in the history of Pop art.
It
was between these to eras that another one came raging into the light, Comic
books. Comics had been around long
before these 2 art forms took fold but it was in 1938 that they truly came of
age and so began the first Golden Age in the comic book world. The golden age
first brought us many of the superhero’s we know today, the first Action Comic
having the now famous Superman on it’s cover. Others such as Wonder Women,
Batman and Captain America took shape during this period. The Silver Age which
came after WW2 in the 1950s, helped establish the value of comics and brought
with it some of the most influential creators and artists of the comics world.
Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Neal Adams to name a few. Soon after came 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, starting in the 1980s and still going
strong today. This period
introduced some darker and more complex characters such as Watchmen. More
independent comics and graphic novels flourished and the creators became more
well know and active 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, merging these 3 art forms in a new and creative way. Taking a cue from Robert Rauschenberg,
David uses not just his paintbrush to create an image for the viewer but clips
whether from comics photos or drawings to help empathize and create more depth
and movement through out the pieces. Unlike Rauschenberg, Leblanc covers more
of the underlying pieces with his paint, giving us only a hint of what lies
underneath. Creating a whirlwind
of movement with the fast thick brush strokes, showing us his influence from
the Abstract Expressionist, and truly capturing the title Action Abstraction
within his work.
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