Brian Calvin
by Phillip Van den Bossche
“The vice called surrealism is the immoderate and passionate use of the drug which is the image.” (Louis Aragon)
Imagine an exhibition with paintings of Brian Calvin in Paris and during the opening one would follow bits of conversations between guests coming from different worlds. Philip Guston for instance, would explain to Louis Aragon how we inherited ‘back in the future’ the myth of abstract art: “There is something ridiculous and miserly in the fact that painting is autonomous, pure and for itself. Painting is ‘impure’. It is the adjustment of ‘impurities’ which forces its continuity. We are image-makers and image-ridden.” Aragon would agree with the last words, smile and walk further. A number of small paintings with lips, entitled Mouthfeel, caught his eye.
One thousands miles of waves of suns further and looking at the new paintings of Brian Calvin feels both strange and familiar at the same time. First about the strangeness…