PHILADELPHIA

JON MANTEAU

LGTripp Gallery

“To a Hammer, Everything Looks Like a Nail,” a show of recent works by Philadelphia-based artist Jon Manteau (b. 1963), proved that a true graffiti artist never surrenders; he just adds a couple of fine arts degrees to his early obsession with embellishing the world. Known as “Beep” in his teens, Manteau was an active member of three graffiti clubs in Philadelphia. This is his third solo at the gallery.

Manteau’s painted abstract expressions in two and three dimensions reveal a universe in flux, familiar and diverse. Two large panel paintings with attached driftwood, an ink drawing and separate pieces of painted driftwood, both wall-hung and free-standing, filled the first gallery with waves of whirling, dancing color.

Created for the space, Gumtrees and Ghosts (2011, 8’ x 20’ x 5’) was the major work on view. Paint-spattered driftwood tree trunks seemed to secure the plywood panels, covered in loose skeins of house paint, to the wall. Brilliant colors are woven into abstract columns that can be viewed in front of, between and under the driftwood. In the ink-on-paper study Spiders from Mars (2010, 40” x 60”), vertical brushstrokes create a sense of volume and light across a distant sky. Another painting on panel with driftwood inclusions, titled He Must Be Gay, (2010), expresses a sensitive, inclusive mood. The gnarled driftwood branches and trunks on the walls and floor throughout the gallery were collected by Manteau along the banks of rivers in Philadelphia.

In a smaller room, one wall was lined with detritus from the artist’s studio; paint-saturated trays, shoes, paint cans, lids and brushes formed a colorful three-dimensional composition. This lively installation found a meditative counterpoint in nine small abstract works on paper (2009-2011). Each has its own palette and a unique composition, but together they merged into a harmonious unit.

The 8-foot square Nobel Inventor of Dynamite (2010) is also made of house paint on plywood, sans driftwood inclusions. A tactile surface emerges from the multiple layers of paint. The network of brushstrokes creates varied visual depths united by rhythmic white passages. This painting seems to contain the seeds of all the others.

From his graffiti-fixated youth, Manteau has evolved into an artist whose dynamic abstract paintings and installations infuse their environs with vitality.

– Anne Fabbri
SEPTEMBER ’11 ART IN AMERICA

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