Rodger LaPelle
By: R.B. Strauss, Staff
07/01/2008
"#31" by Rodger LaPelle
PSYCHIC STRESSOR: Aspects of the amorphous sharpen talons just for kicks. Happy-go-lucky art covers the walls
to disparage despair via biomorphic gunnery. Yet as weapons, these drawings are of an ilk gone squishy, the squid
logic surrendered fast to fall tangy Tanguy and a neat nod to sharp Arp. These drawings are offered in colored
pencil, including black. They cover a wide range of territory, from hints of blueprints to the aforementioned
biomorphic pieces rooted in Dada and on beyond into runic symbolism, all with an overlay of the cybernetic life we
all lead today. There are even touches of the still life easing on through here.
ITEM: New Drawings, by Rodger LaPelle, are in full sprawl mode at the artist's eponymous hideout, Rodger LaPelle
Galleries (www.rodgerlapellegalleries.com), 122 North Third Street. This work features a sequence that has
covered a lifetime.
"I've been doing this style for 50 years," LaPelle offered with his typical nonchalance. As to what this art constitutes,
well, that is altogether different. "When I work," he continued, "I don't know what I'm doing, but that's the way I like it."
Indeed.
Rollin' rollin', rollin' - that's what's in store with "70-#13." The title corresponds to the 13th drawing completed in the
artist's 70th year. Which rates a wild Wow! So, that black disc with its tiny red bar, well, it's ever accelerating. And
yet is it stationary, spinning atop its tiny base, like a bird's eye view of some secret temple? One can't know, ever;
and this mystery is its source of life. It feeds off our curiosity, as do so many others in this sequence.
And then there is that yellow figure on the right, its own juggernaut self like a factory that breeds instead of makes.
This life is real beyond its own citizenry, with the plumes of ectoplasm tossing up their own creatures, perhaps but
blobs, perhaps awaiting calcium to form bones. And sure, there is the taffy pull creature that balances atop the
exhaust, itself exhausted and perhaps calling that black disc on home.
At once angular and pensive, rotund and meditative, all tossed into one being within the confines of "70-#24." Oh,
you slouchy figure! This goes back to mighty remembrance of the artist's youth in the heyday of The Beat
Generation, in that this little guy front and center ain't slouchin' but rather takin' it oh so easy. Yet this bad boy sure
doesn't like Ike, as it rests something regal on a throne of sorts.
This is also akin to a travelogue rather than a map, and the treasure at journey's end is undoubtedly yet another
portrait, because these drawings are, yes, portraits beyond self. What they respond to is a mirror of the viewer's
own making, and what passes for the sublime instead is shifted into the subliminal. Rooted in its own subjective
soul, this being is a process of sorts, its transitory state a flux that has left solidity behind the fence that is its own
lie. No, this item cannot be fenced in at all, just how it must be.
Beyond being, this vision state is all sensory overload, here in "07-#5." (This is one of a sequence titled by another
system, a touch of further mystery, folks. Yipes!) This holds some telescope business and some microscope
business and a few lenses yet to be ground, the future drawn back a bit. The biological imperative here is
paramount, to be sure, the certainty of the curvature something beyond any mere four dimensions. This is where
string theory meets the agile road: yours, mine, and foremost LaPelle's. A free-flowing energy cascades through
the night, and of course, cells are dividing here, while other images flow in avian acuity.
The planets here are sundered as living things, their deepened souls as much mental meshing as magma gone
gooey. An abiding grace holds fancy close, the concept of "arm's length" nothing but the lie that LaPelle shoots
down as with a sure shot, and he don't stop. Hip hop, hip hop.
"71-#3" is a zoo, a museum exhibit, and other scenes of dreams. At heart, though, you've got faith in all its
positivity. The tiny quadruped on the left is in total sync with its familiar deity, hovering there on the right. But is this
spherical shape a ship? There is a crash course here in how we have divined the divine. And even an atheist can
nod itself into smiling at this sight. Yes, we've got a window that LaPelle has put up and beyond its pane there is no
more pain, Amen!
You've got yet another example of mitosis and what the result will be is just a sibling of the little guy, his own realm
a reality check that is soon mated and never dated. Indeed, time is a concept best left lost to eternity while an
infinite glee moves over the spherical image at hand, on beyond the need for opposable thumbs.
HEFT: Rodger LaPelle's New Drawings is an inundation of glory that keeps the viewer well satisfied, yet still hungry
for more. Cool and deliberate, this work also proves that chance is not always blind but a quality that yields its own
reward if you are simply willing to see.
©Montgomery Newspapers 2008
By: R.B. Strauss, Staff
07/01/2008
"#31" by Rodger LaPelle
PSYCHIC STRESSOR: Aspects of the amorphous sharpen talons just for kicks. Happy-go-lucky art covers the walls
to disparage despair via biomorphic gunnery. Yet as weapons, these drawings are of an ilk gone squishy, the squid
logic surrendered fast to fall tangy Tanguy and a neat nod to sharp Arp. These drawings are offered in colored
pencil, including black. They cover a wide range of territory, from hints of blueprints to the aforementioned
biomorphic pieces rooted in Dada and on beyond into runic symbolism, all with an overlay of the cybernetic life we
all lead today. There are even touches of the still life easing on through here.
ITEM: New Drawings, by Rodger LaPelle, are in full sprawl mode at the artist's eponymous hideout, Rodger LaPelle
Galleries (www.rodgerlapellegalleries.com), 122 North Third Street. This work features a sequence that has
covered a lifetime.
"I've been doing this style for 50 years," LaPelle offered with his typical nonchalance. As to what this art constitutes,
well, that is altogether different. "When I work," he continued, "I don't know what I'm doing, but that's the way I like it."
Indeed.
Rollin' rollin', rollin' - that's what's in store with "70-#13." The title corresponds to the 13th drawing completed in the
artist's 70th year. Which rates a wild Wow! So, that black disc with its tiny red bar, well, it's ever accelerating. And
yet is it stationary, spinning atop its tiny base, like a bird's eye view of some secret temple? One can't know, ever;
and this mystery is its source of life. It feeds off our curiosity, as do so many others in this sequence.
And then there is that yellow figure on the right, its own juggernaut self like a factory that breeds instead of makes.
This life is real beyond its own citizenry, with the plumes of ectoplasm tossing up their own creatures, perhaps but
blobs, perhaps awaiting calcium to form bones. And sure, there is the taffy pull creature that balances atop the
exhaust, itself exhausted and perhaps calling that black disc on home.
At once angular and pensive, rotund and meditative, all tossed into one being within the confines of "70-#24." Oh,
you slouchy figure! This goes back to mighty remembrance of the artist's youth in the heyday of The Beat
Generation, in that this little guy front and center ain't slouchin' but rather takin' it oh so easy. Yet this bad boy sure
doesn't like Ike, as it rests something regal on a throne of sorts.
This is also akin to a travelogue rather than a map, and the treasure at journey's end is undoubtedly yet another
portrait, because these drawings are, yes, portraits beyond self. What they respond to is a mirror of the viewer's
own making, and what passes for the sublime instead is shifted into the subliminal. Rooted in its own subjective
soul, this being is a process of sorts, its transitory state a flux that has left solidity behind the fence that is its own
lie. No, this item cannot be fenced in at all, just how it must be.
Beyond being, this vision state is all sensory overload, here in "07-#5." (This is one of a sequence titled by another
system, a touch of further mystery, folks. Yipes!) This holds some telescope business and some microscope
business and a few lenses yet to be ground, the future drawn back a bit. The biological imperative here is
paramount, to be sure, the certainty of the curvature something beyond any mere four dimensions. This is where
string theory meets the agile road: yours, mine, and foremost LaPelle's. A free-flowing energy cascades through
the night, and of course, cells are dividing here, while other images flow in avian acuity.
The planets here are sundered as living things, their deepened souls as much mental meshing as magma gone
gooey. An abiding grace holds fancy close, the concept of "arm's length" nothing but the lie that LaPelle shoots
down as with a sure shot, and he don't stop. Hip hop, hip hop.
"71-#3" is a zoo, a museum exhibit, and other scenes of dreams. At heart, though, you've got faith in all its
positivity. The tiny quadruped on the left is in total sync with its familiar deity, hovering there on the right. But is this
spherical shape a ship? There is a crash course here in how we have divined the divine. And even an atheist can
nod itself into smiling at this sight. Yes, we've got a window that LaPelle has put up and beyond its pane there is no
more pain, Amen!
You've got yet another example of mitosis and what the result will be is just a sibling of the little guy, his own realm
a reality check that is soon mated and never dated. Indeed, time is a concept best left lost to eternity while an
infinite glee moves over the spherical image at hand, on beyond the need for opposable thumbs.
HEFT: Rodger LaPelle's New Drawings is an inundation of glory that keeps the viewer well satisfied, yet still hungry
for more. Cool and deliberate, this work also proves that chance is not always blind but a quality that yields its own
reward if you are simply willing to see.
©Montgomery Newspapers 2008
Art Matters
The Philadelphia Region's Magazine of the Arts
See the art this article is about right now by clicking HERE
The Philadelphia Region's Magazine of the Arts
See the art this article is about right now by clicking HERE
