ELLYN WEISS


Home arrow GessoHead - Blog arrow Al Miner is naked at G Fine Art
feed image
Al Miner is naked at G Fine Art

April  16, 2010

Image As I write this, I’m looking at a piece by Al Miner that I acquired years ago in a trade and while it has many of the same technical characteristics and concerns of his current work – almost life-size figuration zoomed in on a face that cannot be contained by the picture’s edge, it was painted by a different person. I go way back with Al Miner; we were members of the same artists coop back in the day when Al was Alison. I’m not revealing any secrets here since Al’s show, “Naked”, the inaugural one at G Fine Art’s wonderful new space on Florida Ave NE chronicles the changes in his body that have transformed him from a dumpy, unhappy woman to much more happy and, frankly, adorable man, although some of the paintings seem to reveal Miner having doubts about his choice mid-stream.

Image
Al is much better lookiing than this
The pictures, portraying as they do an inherently brutal physical process, can make you wince (In my case, I swear I could feel a shooting pain in my boobs) but they are not gory; they are honest depictions of a journey and a courage both emotional and intensely physical. Miner's subject has traditionally been the face, I generally assumed they were his face, although the images have been depicted from distorting angles and at such close range that identity is difficult to be sure about. The close-in portraits done prior to transformation had the paradoxical effect of creating distance between viewer and subject. In "Naked", Miner has revealed himself in a more intimate and, again paradoxically, approachable way.

 
< Prev   Next >

© 2012 ELLYN WEISS