Artist who lost hand exhibits searing works

Daily Press (Newport News, Va.) (MCT) - Matt Sesow was just 8 years old when he learned about the cruelty of chance and the pain of being permanently disfigured.

Playing in a field near his Nebraska home, he was struck by the propeller of a small plane attempting to land at an adjacent airstrip. Though doctors succeeded in re-attaching his severed left arm, he ultimately lost his left _ and dominant _ hand.

Nearly two decades passed before Sesow _ then a software engineer based in Washington, D.C. _ began sifting through this traumatic experience by taking up painting. Two more years went by before the self-taught artist displayed his labors in public for the first time, selling 14 works on the sidewalks of Georgetown.

Sesow started painting full-time in 2000, producing images of such biting, frantic, slashing impact that they led to exhibits at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington and the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. He also struck a chord with such influential contemporary folk art collectors as Baron and Ellin Gordon of Williamsburg, Va.

Two of Sesow's searing yet unexpectedly complex paintings can now be seen at the Gordon Galleries of Old Dominion University, which became home to much of the couple's nationally known collection in August 2007. For all their intensity, however, these insightful explorations of the human psyche represent just the opening shot in a new exhibit of more than 50 works called "Uncommon Power: The Eye of the Self-Taught Artist."

Organized by curator Ramona Austin _ and drawn entirely from the Gordon's collection _ the show is only the second in the 2,500-square-foot gallery since it opened. But it's far more structured and instructive than the inaugural exhibit as a survey of contemporary self-taught art.

It also demonstrates time and again that these homely if often wildly inspired talents can be the equal of any academically trained artist _ and perhaps connect with ordinary viewers more strongly because of the way they embrace the whims, worries and wounds of everyday life.

Sesow's gripping vision of two addiction-addled inmates in "Out of Detox," for example, doesn't shrink from expressing the manic, self-destructive existence led by its subjects. With their wild eyes, crazy hair and antic grins, they both look fundamentally disturbed _ and Sesow underscores their beleaguered conditions with his thrashing brush strokes and the unnatural blues, reds and greens he chooses for the color of their eyes, tongues and skins.

What singles this picture out even more is the evocative gesture of shared pain and companionship with which these strung-out souls hold each other. Even in their besieged state, they still manage to connect with one another _ and stir feelings of a shared humanity with viewers.

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Humankind is one of the folk-art world's favorite subjects, in fact, and _ as the exhibit shows _ it's a fertile ground for commentary. California artist Ted Gordon is one of the foremost practitioners in the field, producing probing portraits of character, personality and mental state through such obsessively detailed, artfully distorted likenesses as "Pink Man." His "Blue Blood Miser" and "Senior Choir Boy" also rank high as revealing ink-on-paper depictions.

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Religion, right living and the struggle between good and evil make up an equally fertile ground for self-taught artists, many of whom take up their brushes, hammers and other tools in order to capture their visions and prophesies. Ronald Cooper's "Sin Street, Any City" is only one in a rich collection of examples on view here, most aimed at saving your soul but also willing _ if you don't toe the fundamentalist line _ to see you cast into eternal damnation.

Taking a two-tiered coffee table, the Kentucky artist added crudely carved and painted figures of people to both the top and bottom levels _ then graced the first with a larger figure of Christ and the second with a grinning Satan. Rudimentary rows of buildings flank the cavorting crowd of devilish characters below, representing such loathsome soul traps as a gay bar, liquor store and house of prostitution.

There's no mistaking the white traffic sign Cooper paints down the middle of this sinful boulevard: "One way street to hell," it says. Equally clear is the message scrawled in front of the gleeful choir of the saved: "Heaven will be worth it all. Our heavenly home."

In many other works, the natural world proves to be just as compelling a source of fascination. Just take a look at Georgia artist Tobey Ivy's rendering of the woman in a "Big Yellow Dress"_ or his view of a group of animals titled "Birds, Elephants and Monkeys."

Though set down on paper as the simplest shapes, the elemental blotches of brown paint in the latter still bristle with an extraordinary kind of character. Even more personality comes from Ivy's unexpectedly meticulous attention to their eyes.

Don't miss the endearing way that the pair of primates who lead this quirky parade clasp one another's hands. It's the kind of detail that makes you stop, then smile in wonder.

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News to Use

What: "Uncommon Power: The Eye of the Self-Taught Artist"

Where: Baron and Ellin Art Galleries, Old Dominion University Gallery, 4509 Monarch Way, Norfolk, Va.

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When: 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday through March 8

Cost: Free

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© 2008, Daily Press (Newport News, Va.).