Boston Common - Niche Media - A side of Boston that's anything but common.
Issue link: http://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/526269
ANDREW FISH In rendering anonymous fi gures and the long shadows they cast in the urban outdoors, Andrew Fish takes his cues from digital imaging before moving away toward the distinctive properties of painting and printmaking. Fish recently completed the League Residency at Vyt, in upstate New York, and in 2014 he received a grant from the Somerville Arts Council. wanderingfi sheye.com RAÚL GONZALEZ III In the drawings of Raúl Gonzalez III, aka Raul the Third, beings incorporat- ing comic-book creatures, tattoo designs, and Mexican folk art do violence to one another and themselves in the service of surrealistic but recognizably Latino nar- ratives. Gonzalez recently showed at the Fitchburg Art Museum, and a children's book he illustrated, Lowriders in Space (Chronicle Books, $17.81), was published last fall. artbyraul.com reconfigured giant tableaux from various series (Asian sculp- tures, moths, trees) in two spec- tacular settings: a deconsecrated church in Cincinnati and a fac- tory space in Stockholm. At the heart of the installation was the Starns' take on a Davy carbon arc lamp, the early-19th-century forerunner of the electric light bulb, which served as Gravity of Light's sole source of illumina- tion. Light from the 45,000-watt lamp, burning at 6,000 degrees, was so intense that visitors had to be issued protective goggles. The eccentric lighting created a chiaroscuro effect that only heightened the implicit romanticism of their imagery. The Buddhist-inspired themes that the Starns now explore in their work could not be more different from the rebel-yell spirit of their early days in Boston in the 1980s. The brothers were heavily into the grung y aes- thetic that permeated the city's creative scene. For artists who would later poeticize all things light, they spent a surprising number of hours deprived of it, f lip- ping between darkrooms and rock clubs. This was the high-water mark of the post-punk age. "Mavericks was a great place," Doug recalls. "In the mosh pit at a Flipper concert, Mike managed to break his ankle." They also fre- quented venues like The Rat in Kenmore Square, Streets in Allston, and The Underground near Boston University, where they heard bands like the Ramones, Birthday Party with Nick Cave, and Mission of Burma. They were serious students, though, getting what they needed from instructors and museum col- lections. They learned as much, however, from their peers. T he per for ma nce a r t ist a nd photog ra her Ma rk Mor r isroe, in particular, was an important inspiration. This bril- liant, dark presence in Boston and later New York's East Village, who died of AIDS-related complications at age 30 in 1989, overlapped with both Nan Goldin's era in the late 1970s and the Starns' in the next decade. "We were neighbors on Park Drive, opposite the MFA," says Doug, "and would help each other believe in beauty in general and the sensualness of the medium of photography in its rough edges when no one seemed to care." Morrisroe could have been the poster child of Goldin's celebrated Ballad of Sexual Dependency. He explored queerness and "Every artist has their own inner debate and dialogue, but we have an external one as well to help our art advance." —Doug and Mike Starn BOSTON'S RISING ARTISTS THE CITY'S CREATIVE CLASS IS QUIC KLY ASCENDING THE WORLD'S ARTISTIC RANKS. BY FRANKLIN EINSPRUCH ABOVE: A drawing by Raul the Third; Sun Dial by Andrew Fish, 2015. TOP RIGHT: The Starns in front of test prints for the glass façade they will install at the new US Embassy in Moscow in 2018. OPPOSITE PAGE: The Starns' Big Bambú: 5,000 Arms to Hold You, 2014, at Jerusalem's Israel Museum. 88 BOSTONCOMMON-MAGAZINE.COM