Contributed photo
George's "Landscape", acrylic on board.Sana Rose, Contributor Milton presents Milton", an exhibition of works by artist Milton George opened on Wednesday, November 28, at the Mint Gallery in New Kingston, marking that gallery's first anniversary since its launch. As the title of the show suggests, the exhibition sought to present the essence of Milton George through the eyes of the artist.
The exhibition presented the characteristic style and content of the artist's work, confronting us with the familiar nature of Milton's themes of sexuality and socio-political commentary through the use of punning. Throughout the exhibition, Milton's phallic and animal emblems and figural distortions, spiced with a touch of humour, could be seen colliding with the flat, shallow and oftentimes ambiguous space in which they reside causing both to be indistinguishable at times.
The images are unapologetic in their crudeness as Milton steers us away from the idea of 'pretty pictures'. This creates a paradox in itself where the crudeness is imbued with a seemingly childlike simplicity in which paint or pastel is applied to every inch of the canvas, paper and board in glaring primary colours. This serves to throw the viewer off track from the issues and ideas with which the artist is concerned but despite this childlike simplicity, the images are obviously consciously composed with a trained eye.
The smaller pastel pieces are less successful, being overshadowed by some of the larger acrylic works such as 'Animal', 'Carlene' and 'Painting of a Cowboy'. Overall, the exhibition is a little less aggressive and vibrant than some of Milton's earlier work and restates what we know so far about his work. Regarding the man and the artist, Milton presents himself to us in one painting, 'Artist as Horse' as tired and burdened while in 'Nude Between Trees', one sees his self-portrait surrounded by phallic shapes.
In other paintings, he becomes the voyeur, placing the viewer in the same position to view the things he sees or better yet, takes notice of. Milton never seems to let us see too much of him as he merely gives us clues that have to be deciphered. In her opening speech, the guest speaker, Group Legal Advisor for Sandals Resort International and collector of Milton's work, Taynia Nethersole, remarked that Milton signs his name "MLTON" because he reserves the "I" for himself.
The exhibition is proof of that as Milton has withheld any new information about himself and clearly has a controlled upper hand in how much he allows us to see. Ms. Nethersole stated that the artist, "does not like to tell people why he paints or the meaning of his paintings, he prefers to hear what you see in his art". In this exhibition, without giving away too much, Milton has once again left the onus on the viewer to decipher his raw expressionism and take from the work, his or her own interpretations.
