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Published on 7/25/08
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At any Chicago thrift store, you’ll find multicolored sweaters circa 1985 waiting for you to take them home. Those nearly unsellable eyesores—along with hipster/punk fashion and the yuppie look of Ann Taylor—seem to have inspired Milwaukee-based artist Tyson Reeder’s six new paintings of sweaters. Reeder reflects on the familiar garment in frenzied brushstrokes that range from seemingly spontaneous lines to Impressionist dashes, challenging the viewer to dig into both art history and contemporary pop culture for clues to his meaning.
The artist plays up the urban hipster’s pseudo–globally informed aesthetic in Sweater 4, a sweater with a portrait of a neon-pink Big Ben, horizontal zigzag pink stripes and a puffed-out chest. Reeder sets the sweater against a similarly ugly-cool array of orange squiggles overlying a maroon background. The styles of the rich and famous take precedence in Sweater 1, a smaller, more detail-oriented painting of a women’s sweater—festooned with two black ducks, green squares, red dots and other ornaments—hanging on a silver hanger. While most of Reeder’s sweaters are filled by perfect-yet-invisible forms, Sweater 2 is worn by a stumpy figure whose body is covered in patches of pink, green, white and blue, multicolored stripes and what looks like wisps of blue and green fur. Perhaps the artist is acknowledging that clothing looks less-than-ideal on the nonmodels who buy it.
Although the gallery’s commentary on the show emphasizes the artist’s interest in the historic styles underlying contemporary trendiness, only his references to the 1980s are clear. But even if Reeder’s sweaters are just fun and fashion-conscious, their charm hangs on.
