Expressing the complex with color

BOBBIE ALLEN

Art and fashion have had a long marriage. The Los Angeles Museum of

Art now has a wonderful collection on view, highlighting opera

costumes designed by artists such as Henri Matisse. Sometimes,

artists became famous because their outfits, choosing something

outrageous or “signature” (Picasso, for instance, favored bold

striped shirts, now in vogue again). Even Jackson Pollock’s black

denim and T-shirt was an anti-conformist statement appropriate for

his time, 1940s America, and represented his commanding and

aggressive mastery of paint.

Perhaps, then, it is no coincidence that there is a heavy Pollock

influence in the work of Vladimir Prodanovich, permanently on view at

X Art and Fashion (226 Ocean Ave.). Prodanovich’s work hangs on the

walls above and around racks of clothing exclusively designed by

Katharine Story -- beautiful clothes with unusual lines, contrasting

fabric and color combinations -- that work in complement with

Prodanovich’s canvases and sculptures.

“Perfect Harmony” (acrylic on canvas, 68x61) fills the back wall

of the gallery. It makes free use of spattered paint, with layers of

bright greens and yellows, in Pollock-like zeal. But his work is not

completely abstract. Flashes of crimson and black let us know this is

a poppy field. The texture and size of the canvas are absorbing; and

in homage to his own labor, Prodanovich has affixed his

paint-stiffened brushes to the canvas.

Really, his work displays an amazing array of abstract

expressionist influences. The walls leading to “Perfect Harmony”

contain four highly glazed, translucent color studies that betray an

admiration for Mark Rothko. Rothko produced soaring, transcendent

canvases with multiple, thin layers that produced an illusion of

incredible depth. Prodanovich, in “Horizontal Composition” and

“Vertical Composition” (both oil on canvas, 32x38), uses dark

underpaint to emphasize vivid, strangely peaceful reds, whites, and

bright fuchsias. They are a lovely homage to a master.

But it is Prodanovich’s color palette that marks his style. He

tends to choose colors that appear opposite each other on the color

wheel. All are rich and intense: No thin, watery pastels here. The

same reds, violets, and yellows appear again and again in eclectic

variety. All his canvases are highly layered; but texture,

composition and form can vary widely but are all executed with

mastery. Even his sculptures, scattered throughout the gallery, are

bright and geometric. They are very painterly, cubist with bold

lines. (More sculptures will be highlighted at an artist’s reception

Jan. 31.)

The artist seems to have an affinity for flowers, and I wonder if

this isn’t because of his attraction to such bright ranges of color.

Another large canvas, “Flowers Awakening” (acrylic, 64x64) fills the

front window. In it, large, simple petals in a daisy-like pattern

blaze optimistically at the viewer, nearly naive.

But that same range of brights appears also in a series of

canvases that are based around the dark depictions of a woman’s

profile. She is partially present-from the hips up-standing now in

front of a violet ground, now gray. “Woman with Red Hair” (oil,

43x33) is so composed and still that is seems almost sad. Her face is

a purple smear, but the gesso underwork and rough texture of the

clouds suggest melancholy contemplation.

The same exact form -- the same pose, the same woman-is also in

“Waiting” (oil, 32x38). This time the deep violet and orange ground

suggests something more sensual. It is interesting to see such

variations on a theme.

A series of horizon paintings show Prodanovich playing with pure

colors. “Purple Dream” (oil, 32x38) uses a storm of colors with

subtle, thick application. A range of purples draw the eye to a

textured green, red and orange horizon line. All the same, it is a

very flat canvas, like Prodanovich’s other compositions in similar

colors. “Horizon” (32x38) almost looks like green and blue silk, like

the fabric in Story’s skirts and blouses that hang below.

Rothko and fellow artist Adolph Gottlieb wrote, “We favor the

simple expression of the complex thought. We are for the large shape

because it has the impact of the unequivocal. We wish to reassert the

picture plane. We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion

and reveal truth.” These words could not be more apt for Prodanovich,

executing the complex thought in his own, highly individual sense of

color.

* BOBBIE ALLEN is a poet and writer who has taught art theory and

criticism. She currently teaches writing at the University of

California, Irvine.