Josephine Crawford’s series of face paintings began when a restaurant owner in Phoenix, a fan of her work, asked her to sketch faces onto the walls of his business. He wanted her to paint the faces quickly, without sketches or planning. She internalized this working method over the next five years, quickly creating a series of 40 or so paintings, crowded with faces that rapidly emerged from the tip of her paintbrush. Crawford created and finished the series during the 90s, but some of the paintings are being given new life via an exhibit at Gallery at the Marina Square, “Reality Show” on parade through Feb. 27.
“They’re kind of macabre in a way,” said Crawford of her faces. And they are, placed together in such a way that the canvas looks too small to contain so many beings. Often, their faces are grotesquely white, lips too red, calling to mind Batman’s psychopathic Joker. There’s undeniably a comment on the human condition, though Crawford prefers to leave the interpretation to the viewer. Though Crawford is not an abstract painter and, in fact, insists that she is incapable of painting within that genre, this particular series emanates an abstract quality that gives its audience a greater stake in deciding what it all means.
“I had this white oil paint and an old mucky brush and I got the white oil paint and just scrubbed it all over,” she described.
None of the faces were plotted out in advance, or modeled after the visages of friends and acquaintances. Crawford starts out with a square, which she fills with circles that will become people. Some are set in a library or café, or crowded so tightly together that there’s no space for a setting of any kind. They talk, read books, share secrets, look at laptops, consume wine, all in a style that is striking as vaguely vintage art nouveau. A few favored figures are embellished with jewelry, earrings, or hats accentuating pink cheeks and purple eyelids.
Adolph Hitler, Mother Theresa, and the artist’s own mother have all made accidental appearances in the work. When she finishes a painting, mostly oil pastel, she recognizes unexpected relationships between figures.
When Crawford moved to SLO she asked herself her favorite question: now what. The answer was a happy one for the local arts community.
“I thought ‘I can paint. I can draw. I’ll be an artist.’”
A prolific couple of decades later and Crawford’s house/ studio resembles an untidy museum, teeming with paintings of all sizes and subjects. Her most recent body of work earthily combines dirt and flowers and birds. Though she is drawn toward large-scale works, the onslaught of years has robbed her of her ability to vault nimbly between ladders, as she once did. So, she started painting on a smaller scale.
“I did them so quickly,” she said of the 40 or so paintings in the series. “It lasted about four or five years. My husband likes them a lot. A few months ago he asked why didn’t I do more. The weird thing is, I can’t do them now. It was like it wasn’t the right time anymore.”
“I’m completely freaking hopeless,” she admitted. “I say the wrong stuff and I can’t do computers properly.”
Of course, the impulses that make it difficult to market herself as an artist likely stem from the same well of creativity that gave birth to her haunting faces. ∆
Arts Editor Ashley Schwellenbach is often merely a figure at a café. Send bookish lattes to aschwellenbach@newtimesslo.com.
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