Jerry Ross Barrish

Art Dreko: The Assemblage Madness of Jerry Ross Barrish

When:  Fri., Nov. 21 – Sun., Feb. 1, 2009
Jacquelin Pilar Contemporary Gallery
Conversation with the Artist:  Fri., Nov. 21, 5:00 pm

 


“Artists have often been called alchemists, referring to the medieval chemical philosophy involving the transmutation of base materials – such as lead – into gold. Jerry Ross Barrish’s special gifts of artistic alchemy are imagination and empathy. He is able to create figurative sculptures from the basest of materials: scraps of plastic found on the beach near his home or gleaned from scrap yards. With these shards of our disposable sculpture he breathes life into his figures through their eloquent poses and gestures.” PHIL LINHARES

 

Over the years, Jerry Barrish has gathered plastic refuse on the beaches near his home in Pacifica, California, cleaning it, categorizing it, and then integrating it into a wonderful array of figurative assemblage sculptures. Art is an ever-changing topography on the West Coast, with its own vernacular associations, its own personal vocabulary, and Barrish participates in his own way. His paintbrush is a glue gun, his easel a washtub. He has a sharp eye for the human persona, what makes it tick, and what is hidden beneath the gesture – it is this perception that infuses his figures with their sense of humanity.

San Francisco was the birthplace of Funk Sculpture; an art form closely related to Dada and Beat poetry, which found its precedents in the works of Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. The freeform nuances of Barrish’s portraiture share something with Funk Sculpture, though Barrish was unaware of this movement until much later. Brought to life using the post-waste detritus of consumer culture, the works on view in the current Fresno Art Museum exhibition are drawn from a number of categories that make up the Barrish’s imaginative oeuvre: Animals and Birds, Musicians and Dancers, Café Life and Collaborations.

These mixed media sculptures are about nostalgia for history – not a formal history, but the history of the street, of the everyday life we live. Barrish’s forms communicate a sense of underlying sadness that caricature the human condition with an understanding of individual motivation. Sometimes the figures seem to be waiting for a better time and convey a sense of pathos while others portray an essence of joyful anticipation. Barrish possesses the gift of story telling and it is this gift that produces a sense of magic when a piece is completed. Often his found objects dictate what gives structure to the completion of a preconceived vision that is enhanced by his visual acuity and his sensitivity to humanity.

Jerry Ross Barrish’s work is included in the permanent collections of The Oakland Museum of California; the San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose; the University Art Museum, UC Berkeley; University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona; UC Davis, Nelson Gallery, Davis, CA; UC Santa Cruz, Eloise Pickard Smith Gallery, Santa Cruz; and The Rene & Veronica di Rosa Foundation, Napa, CA. After completion of his B.F.A. and M.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute Barrish made a series of films, one, “Shuttlecock” (1980) had its World Premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival; another, ”Recent Sorrows” (1984) had its World Premiere at the San Francisco International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival; and a third, “Dan’s Motel”, World Premiere, New Directors/New Films, at Lincoln Center, New York.