Inez Storer

by Mark Van Proyen

Art in America, Oct 2004 v92 i9 p165(2)
COPYRIGHT 2004 Brant Publications, Inc.

It is worth noting that this 40-year survey of Inez Storer's paintings, works on paper, artist's books and assemblages opened at the same time that the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's Marc Chagall retrospective was attracting record crowds. Both artists imbue experimental forms with a traditional storytelling imperative, and both delight in creating complex compositions made up of seemingly separate figurative vignettes that suggestively elaborate unifying narratives. Finally, the works of both were influenced by stage design (Storer's father worked for Hollywood studios) and an engagement with Jewish themes, which for Storer, raised a Catholic, arose from the belated discovery of her maternal grandmother's German-Jewish identity. Biographical facts lend a special coherence to Storer's many images of a solitary female figure positioned in a theatrical space and seeming to reflect on the moment of divergence between girlhood innocence and the attainment of conflict-laden adult wisdom.

Storer works in a variety of mediums, but the central thrust of her art is best represented by an ongoing series of colorful oil paintings, executed on both canvas and wood panel, initiated in 1978. Many of these incorporate hand-painted text and collage in a way that bespeaks the influence of Funk assemblagists such as William T. Wiley and Wally Hedrick. A good example is the 48-by-36-inch Histories (1996), which pictures a schematic figure, blindfolded and kneeling, who might be praying. A postcard affixed to the painting's surface suggests a kind of thought bubble, its message pointedly crossed out and leading us to wonder what might be motivating the figure's posture of supplication. As is frequently the case with Storer's paintings, these ominous imagistic ploys are handled with a delicate touch that is reminiscent of Latin-American retablo paintings. This lightness disarms the viewer, downplaying the vexing psychological current that underlies the fairy-tale atmosphere.

One of the delights of this exhibition was its ample array of works on paper. Some of these are large hybrid painting/drawings in acrylic that sport subtle collage elements, while others are smaller mono-prints combining etching and lithography, but they all seem to foreground graceful undulating lines imbued with an improvisatory freedom. The sustained immediacy of these works is impressive. Their more notational style conveys the air of a recovered memory tinged with absurd significance. Like dreams, these works simultaneously conceal and reveal, but their canny ambiguity makes the viewer want to complete the puzzles they so elegantly evoke.

"Theatrical Realism: The Art of Inez Storer," curated by Karen Kienzle, was on view at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia, Mar. 14-June 27.

--Mark Van Proyen