{"id":10408,"date":"2018-06-29T19:21:32","date_gmt":"2018-06-29T19:21:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=10408"},"modified":"2018-06-29T19:21:32","modified_gmt":"2018-06-29T19:21:32","slug":"the-inner-landscapes-of-terrence-coffman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=10408","title":{"rendered":"The inner landscapes of Terrence Coffman"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cGail\u2019s Garden 10\u201d, oil,\u00a072-by-84 inches<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Terrence Coffman: A Compendium of Paintings<\/strong>, through July 7 at:<\/p>\n

Tory Folliard Gallery
\n233 N. Milwaukee St.
\nMilwaukee, WI 53202
\n(Map<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Gallery Hours:
\nTues-Friday 11-5
\nSaturday 11-4<\/p>\n

What color is Zen? Wisconsin painter Terrence Coffman seems to know. He ostensibly treads in abstract expressionism\u2019s historical modernism. By contrast, the state\u2019s most notable art tradition stems from the great Midwest regionalists, including Wisconsin\u2019s adopted son, John Steuart Curry. \u00a0Accordingly, most of the state\u2019s dominant art trends have interfaced with the state\u2019s abundant natural resources, including the architectural giant Frank Lloyd Wright.<\/p>\n

In that sense, Coffman fits in, in a sidelong way. He even denies doing abstractions. His paintings, on display at Tory Folliard Gallery through July 7, represent \u201clandscapes of my inner being, my attempt to move into a greater reality \u2026 I\u2019m a conduit of sorts. I don\u2019t stand before a subject to copy it. I breathe it in, consume it and let it flow through me on to canvas.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sounds grandiose but he\u2019s striving for, and far beyond, the indigenous terrain, saying he draws from Zen disciplines of China and India. The result: painterly evocations of the highest order.<\/p>\n

Coffman, who served as president of the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design for 20 years, meditatively \u201cbreathes in\u201d aspects of intensely atmospheric landscapes, or townscapes of Jefferson, WI, his residence. The exhalation effect resembles California color-field abstractionist Richard Diebenkorn who, like Coffman, employed landscape-derived subject series and, atypical to New York abstract expressionists, often in pastels. Coffman has a similarly stunning gift for conjuring beauty that sometimes disappeared in the brawny abstract-expressionist process.<\/p>\n

Coffman does embrace that movement\u2019s grand tradition of large-scale paintings. And yet, the eye-drowning 72-by-84 inch \u201cGail\u2019s Garden 10\u201d is something of an extreme \u201cclose-up.\u201d It recalls ab-ex pioneer Arshile Gorky\u2019s approach of literally diving his face and nose into a garden, to blur his focus but intensify his sensory experience. So we see here two giant rose-like stems and blossoms, and the canvas divides into three large horizontal segments akin to layers of earth, yet they\u2019re all sun-lit in pastel tones. Horizontal streaks effect a weird suspended feeling. Along with such perceptual sleight-of-hand, you also detect small graphite scribbles, suggesting germinating seeds.<\/p>\n

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“A Long Way Home #4” oil, 40 by 20 inches.<\/em><\/p>\n

These slight effects help distinguish Coffman from typical abstract expressionism. He also does very small-scale paintings, demanding fine techniques. So even his biggest canvases reveal miniscule spatters of paint, like a Jackson Pollock \u201cmini-me\u201d standing between his legs. But he\u2019s nobody\u2019s knock-off. Coffman also wields storytelling emotional power, in his two \u201cA Long Way from Home\u201d variations. In Number 4 (above), white clouds chill the spirit; the terrain seems like psychic mazes that might circle him back where he started, a classic nightmare.<\/p>\n

____________<\/p>\n

This review was originally published in The Shepherd Express<\/em>:\u00a0<\/strong>SE Coffman review<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cGail\u2019s Garden 10\u201d, oil,\u00a072-by-84 inches Terrence Coffman: A Compendium of Paintings, through July 7 at: Tory Folliard Gallery 233 N. Milwaukee St. Milwaukee, WI 53202 (Map) Gallery Hours: Tues-Friday 11-5 Saturday 11-4 What color is Zen? Wisconsin painter Terrence Coffman … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-www-kevernacular-com"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hJWE-2HS","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10408"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10421,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10408\/revisions\/10421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}