Triphop's Universe: Bear Hunting @ Marx & Zavattero

Bear Hunting @ Marx & Zavattero

Posted on 2:09 PM by James | 0 comments

I went up to San Francisco this weekend with a couple friends. It was pleasure for me, though for my friend, Peter Perez, it was more of a business trip. You see, Peter just applied to the Graphic Design program at the California College of the Arts. He wanted to go up there to check out the school. And we already have a couple of friends who are currently going there in the same program.

Needless to say, we were up there for a short period of time. I had originally wanted to explore some of the smaller galleries that have been popping up around the City. But, of course, as it turns out, we did not have the time to even go and look around.

I was able, however, to take a moment before I leave for the airport to swing by the newly renamed Marx & Zavattero to say hello to owners Heather Marx and Steve Zavattero. They currently have a show of brand new work by the San Francisco artist James Gobel.

San Francisco artist James Gobel creates a colorful, mysterious world of portly men in Baroque décor playing a lonely game of hide and seek. Gobel’s trademark bold color, intelligent detail, and verbose figures, some holding lit candelabras in search of something or someone, are set within decadent architectural settings that act as a maze for his subjects to navigate. This new series of acrylic felt, wool felt, yarn, & acrylic on canvas paintings will be on view February 14 – March 29, 2008.

Gobel’s work suggests a frolicking yet compassionate farce, painted in a cinematic storyboard fashion, featuring single figures desperately looking for one another and finding various levels of success. Clad in rock t-shirts or plaid flannels, a few of his Bears have given up; they are depicted slumped in a chair, candle wax dripping, signifying that the light will soon be snuffed out and their desires will not be met. Gobel brilliantly intimates an overriding sense of fear and desire juxtaposed with a witty opulence that sheds hope on these games of love. The mix of contemporary hipster garb, the sly nods to the “dandy” (as seen in the tight-fitting calf-high police boots and tights in the grand piece I Love You and I Always Will), the opulent décor of flocked wallpaper, the gilded framed mirrors, and the velvet curtains all add a tantalizing aura to the works.

The great potential of Gobel’s figures may never be realized, though -- if the bears move too quickly, the candles will blow out -- but if they move too slowly, the wick will succumb to ash. Their efforts, however desperate, may come to a bittersweet end, but his figures’ longing gazes also suggest that one may have spotted another. A sense of urgency, desire, and possible failure permeates the works and leaves the viewer rooting for his characters to connect.