Works of art on display (created by artist who had JRA)

[Guest guest]

Abstract artworks offer intellectual exercise

Sunday, June 20, 2004 By Gail Philbin The Grand Rapids Press

http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/grpress/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-0/10877\

26666188850.xml

At first glance, the layered oil and wax paintings in " Van Laar:

Language and Pattern " seem to have little in common with the

straightforward acrylic compositions of " Lawrence O'Toole: Beyond

Abstraction. " Yet, the works of both artists share an important

characteristic -- the abstraction of the familiar.

The two exhibits join a third " West Michigan Woodturners " on display at

the Grand Rapids Art Museum.

In Van Laar's work, words and fragments of images are distorted beyond

recognition until they become new images and patterns in their own

right. In O'Toole's case, landscapes serve as a jumping-off point for

explorations of color, shape and line.

The similarity ends there, however.

Van Laar, a former Calvin College instructor and now professor of art at

the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, takes an intellectual

approach to his work, examining the idea of how our desire for

organization influences our interpretation of images.

O'Toole, an Aquinas College graduate who died in 1986 after a lifelong

struggle with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, created his art on a gut level.

Van Laar's early works start with an image such as the artist's

fingerprint or a fragment of an engraving by Albrecht Durer and build

from there with layers and patterns of paint and wax that nearly obscure

the underlying images.

Other pieces include passages from Darwin's " Origin of the

Species " that have been photocopied and enlarged so many times, the text

is corrupted. The resulting fanciful marks resemble letters of a foreign

alphabet floating over fields of color.

" At first, it is difficult to identify the abstracted forms as letters,

but after careful study, one is able to identify letters and then

phrases, " Assistant Curator Holian writes in the show's catalog.

" The act of 'reading' these works forces the viewer to compromise the

language as pattern and language reverts to its communicative context. "

Van Laar's postcard collection inspired a sequence of eight collages in

" Language and Pattern " that tackle the idea of systems of organization.

The pieces pair images of lakes, dams and other typical postcard fare

with fragments of illustrations, photos and texts of the same size.

As viewers take in the series, they begin to understand they are " being

trained in the artist's own systems of classification, " Holian writes.

If your brain is spinning at this point, don't worry. One gallery over,

O'Toole's peaceful paintings stand ready to bypass your head and touch

your heart.

O'Toole, who died at age 34, painted from his wheelchair, coaxing

evocative tableaux from gnarled hands and stiff arms.

They ranged from his early representational renderings of farm fields

where blocky brush strokes hinted at the changes to come to highly

abstracted close-ups of landscapes with spots, blocks and fields of

color in arresting compositions.

The works in " Beyond Abstraction " would stand on their own without the

artist's remarkable story as a backdrop, but the facts of his life

enrich the experience of the work.

Born in Burbank, Calif., O'Toole grew up in Grand Rapids and was

diagnosed with his disease at 2 1/2 years old, according to his mother,

Kentwood resident Lois Whitmore. He was in a wheelchair by junior high

and attended Eastern Orthopedic School.

Although he had a year of high school art classes under his belt, a

counselor told him he'd never be able to be an artist.

" He came home and said 'Little does he know,' " Whitmore said of her

son's response to the dire prediction.

O'Toole had his first show at the Grand Rapids Art Museum in 1978, four

years after earning a bachelor of fine arts from Aquinas, and exhibited

in solo and group shows.

His works sold for as much as $800 and were bought by individuals and

organizations, including the YWCA, Grand Rapids Community College,

Steelcase Corp. and Free Bed Hospital and Rehabilitation Center.

The nearly 50 pieces in " Beyond Abstraction " represent only a portion of

what this prolific artist created in his short life.

Some never have been on public display before, having been stored in the

basement of Whitmore's condominium all these years.