Art Review: Despair gives way to whimsy in 'Horn Island 27' at Memphis College of Art

From the "Exploration" series, acrylic on canvas, by Jesse Nabers, from "Horn Island 27"

Last year's Horn Island expedition, undertaken immediately after the disastrous explosion of the Deep Horizon offshore oil rig and the horrendous oil spill that followed, produced a somber exhibition that lent the gallery of Memphis College of Art's Rust Hall a wakelike, if not apocalyptic atmosphere.

"Horn Island 27," however, now on view at the private art college in Overton Park, is an entirely different affair, one of calmness and serenity.

The annual sojourn on the narrow Mississippi Gulf Coast island is designed to bring students, faculty and friends of the college into direct and intimate contact with nature and provide challenges to creating works of art in isolation outside of the studio environment. It's an idyll, an instructive adventure, an exposure to nature and a not wholly trustworthy climactic environment and, ideally, a source of inspiration.

Longtime MCA faculty member Robert Riseling founded the trip and was the grown-up-in-charge until he retired in 2004; Don DuMont is now the brave individual willing to be responsible for a group of young artists and a few other faculty members and friends of the college.

I've been writing about the Horn Island exhibitions since 1991, and while I have not covered every one, I learned from experience that each exhibition is different from the others. Last year's show was certainly fraught, and so was the one in 2006, the year after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Even the exhibitions born of calmer times, however, reveal different themes and concerns, if only in the emphasis on various art-making media.

For example, speaking of recent Horn Island shows, 2007 and 2010 were strong in photography, while this year's effort, "Horn Island 27," is weaker in that area. "27," on the other hand, also not particularly impressive in painting, reveals particular talents in watercolor and drawing and a refreshing tinge of whimsy, especially in the work of Michelle Duckworth and Hannah Cole.

Duckworth produced a series of remarkably proficient ink-and-stain-on-wood pictures that depict witty and cunning animal characters in storybook situations, such as the undersea "Expedition" and "Daredevil," an oval-shaped piece in which a courageous rabbit leaps over an alligator whose jaw parts in gleeful anticipation. Cole made a beautiful book, "Lemniscate Island," in an edition of two, complete with handwritten story and artful, totally charming illustrations.

Brittany Seiveno demonstrates a lively eye and a steady hand for intricate detail in a group of ink drawings, several of which, like "Stranded," incorporate digital images. She is also skilled with watercolor, and in the gently rising and falling rhythms of "Dew," she delivers the exhibition's most accomplished piece in that medium.

Not far behind, however, are three small, exquisite semiabstract watercolor landscape paintings by Jesse Nabers: "Island Yellow," "Island White" and "Island Blue," each a slight, insightful variation on the theme of land and water and sky. Nabers reveals an exuberant touch with acrylic paint, on the other hand, in three fairly small, square canvases — "Exploration" 1, 2 and 3 — that depict similar scenes with thick pigment and lush brushwork.

Finally, though this is not a show rich in photography, Cole Wheeler offers three tiny black-and-white landscape images that with their sense of composition and the intensity of the contrast between hues become paradoxically monumental.

This review is a survey of high points in an exhibition that could use a flash of pizzazz, but I suppose we should be happy for the tranquility it depicts rather than the trauma and tragedy of natural and manmade disasters. That in itself is a compelling motivation for seeing "Horn Island 27."

'Horn Island 27'

At Memphis College of Art, Rust Hall, Overton Park, through Oct. 7. Call (901) 272-5100.

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