John Forse, “Carpets, Plastic,” 2022, hair and gouache on board
Avoid Highways, the lovely and well-conceived show of paintings on view now at the West Loop HCC gallery, is in part described by its artist, John Forse, as renditions of “…machinery [that] is productive while also [is] itself breaking down.” I thought how spot-on this description is not only of the work, but of the world today. Our system of modernity, the capitalist bent, here in the U.S. is like a serpent eating its own tail — this Ouroborus condition insulating its middle-class denizens from the worst of its own repercussions. All roads lead to the conclusion that our unparalleled quality of life achieved today comes with a price, ill-timed at best. Today, life feels a lot like a machine gone berzerk. Gloom and doom are on the horizon, but we do have that saving grace Forse mentions, productivity. We’re good at that. It justifies in the short term what we can’t deflect in the long. Call this a coping mechanism… one that’s in the process of breaking down.
This makes for good art, of course, and Forse is a deft painter, comfortable in light and shadow, with nods to Deibenkorn and other Bay Area painters. He’s also collaging detritus on the work, with a model maker’s attention to detail. The hybrids are impressively balanced in their shared media. His attention to color shifts, subtle nuances hefted on the surface with a heavy hand that belies an undercurrent of precision, inspire. Indeed, some of the hybrids have to be examined with returns to discern what is “real” and what is painted. I like to think about how my own experience of Houston is reflected in this strategy.
John Forse, “Ladder,” pastel and gouache on board
Ladder is a painting of an aluminum step ladder, maybe a five-footer, its metallic form resting askance in the foreground, painted in blue and taupe with white patches loosely imitating worn stickers. An orange rust is applied to the hinge connection. The ladder rests in a bed of torn cardboard pieces affixed to the surface along with dirt and other scrap. A mottled yellow strip of paper winds itself about the ladder, its purpose long abandoned. The overall montage creates a convincing illusion of depth. Forse’s hand lies somewhere between trompe l’œil and assemblage, and the overall takeaway is the best of both worlds. He presents realistically rendered quotidian scenes while also treating the surface in an almost child-like manner by montaging bits and scraps of found material. The two languages work well together.
John Forse, “Lift,” 2024, pastel and gouache on board
Another painting, called Lift, depicts a resting cherry picker lift in midnight blue and Paynes gray. The small drivable machine is rendered at night and in perspective, the brush strokes and application composing a symphony of nocturnal light. Forse’s use of color and method of letting the paint read as paint while trusting the end result will wield a more accurate rendering is admirable. It’s not easy to make a painting look like it just sort of happened, naturally. His works are opaquely labored when they need to be and loose when left to describe interstitial passages. This strategy opens up the compositions, allowing the content to exist in convincing environments.
All the work in the show suggests that we do, indeed, come to accept that our urban environment is in a perpetual state of repair. I’m so used to the giant spaghetti strand overpasses constructing and deconstructing themselves that I barely notice the sheer engineering prowess that can make such a thing happen. All in the name of the sacred tit that is consumerism… capitalism, whatever you call it, it’s a system based on progress. On growth, even at the cost of self-consumption.
Forse is in an enviable position in that he is making lemonade out of lemons. The show really is a strong one and worth taking the time to visit. As to what the rest of us do with the constructive/deconstructive nature of our own lives, the jury’s still out.
John Forse, “Far off night,” 2024, pastel and gouache on board
Personally, I think the media feed we all succumb to daily could be understood as a sort of perennial permutation of progress. We see nations and other territories invaded and both sides stake a claim in progress, both dogmatic as the other, while depictions of death are delivered to us on our Reddit feeds and in videos that have more in common with cinema and gaming culture than we’d like to admit. When viewing Forse’s depictions of Houston in all of its heavy machinery laden glory, we are reminded of the coming need for such machinery in lands far away, hopefully sooner than later.
John Forse: Avoid Highways is on view at the Media, Visual & Performing Arts COE at Houston Community College through May 1, 2024.
