Any kind of patriarchal poke in the eye is welcome, especially one that upends the tired visual dynamic of submissive women, but is there anything particularly revolutionary about replacing those suppliant female bodies with male figures in the same position? Additionally, if a painter’s intent is to subvert the ‘male gaze,’ why would they still include bound or nude women as the centerpiece of their imagery? Those questions are likely to hang in the air as you walk away from painter Katerina Olschbaur’s solo exhibition “Dirty Elements” at UCI’s Contemporary Arts Center Gallery, and it leaves a confused aftertaste. Teasing the viewer with S&M imagery while referencing the Old Masters is a startling choice, the painting’s pulchritudinous voluptuousness often an inflamed red, but like the tie-me-up/tie-me-down fetish itself, the pictures feel like she’s going through the motions, coldly calculating the viewer’s emotional responses.
None of the over-sized oil on linen paintings are particularly erotic—especially if power games aren’t your particular kink—though one could argue that the sexual detachment here isn’t necessarily intended to arouse anyone. In poses reminiscent of Baroque angels and saints, Olschbaur’s fleshy figures tie each other up and go through the motions of obeisance; they rest a bare ass on a naked back (Vision (or how I became part of society)) and wear black socks in the bedroom, sprawling their malformed bodies, legs akimbo (Sub Red). In another piece, a woman rests on her engorged, elongated arms, her bare ass waiting to be paddled (Into the Open), as others pull hair and bind wrists (Liaison); fetish heels are referenced (Ecstasy and Me, Him or the Angel, among others); bodies are hoisted, faces hooded, and others passively watch the proceedings (Dirty Elements). The affected withholding of emotion is echoed in the artist’s intentionally limited palette of complimentary colors: Light gives skin a jaundiced pallor or a green look of decay (Road Trip), backgrounds are bloody chiaroscuros, muddy shit browns, or bruised blacks and blues.
Allyson Unzicker’s keen exhibition essay brings in a host of hip porn philosophers from Bataille to Sacher-Masoch to Kathy Acker, successfully opening up the opaquely vague reasons behind the work, while describing the artist’s skilled attention to details inside each of her vast canvasses. Her energetic writing gives the work a deeper pedigree than it deserves, but her examination of each painting is fun, deftly revealing the tiny easter eggs we may otherwise have missed. Make sure to read it as you view this show.
“Katerina Olschbaur: Dirty Elements,” University Art Gallery: Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) Gallery, University of California at Irvine, 712 Arts Plaza, Irvine. Tues.-Sat.: 12-6PM. 949-824-9854. http://uag.arts.uci.edu Thru March 21. FREE (Though you’ll have to pay for parking).
