Art Reviews

Goodfellow's art: Outrageous, but fun to look at,  Sunday, Oct. 18, 1987 The Detroit News by Joy Harkinson Colby

Here's a fellow soaking in his bathtub with a rubber ducky perched on the edge and disaster threatening from above. Teetering crazily, an electric fan and plugged-in television set are about to hit the water, claiming a victim. To make sure we don't miss the point, the TV screen flashes this message: "Goodbye Mr. Chips." At once funny and outrageous, this image is from Stephen Goodfellow's one-man exhibit at Xochipilli Gallery in Birmingham. His paintings are so easy to enjoy that viewers sometimes tend to forget how good he is.

There's still a lingering percep- tion in some quarters that so-called "serious" art requires a serious subject. For instance, an elaborate rationale was worked out to validate the pop artists, saying they turned such ordinary things as Campbell soup cans and Benday dots into icons. Of course, designating anything as an icon automatically makes it seem se- rious.

NOT TO Goodfellow. His forte is to cast a satiric eye on other people's objects of uncritical devotion. He goes about it directly, avoiding symbols and other oblique methods. He devotes a series to television viewers, showing his Couch Potatoes turning into horned monsters and ignoring sunsets to ogle soap operas. He makes a ritual out of a restaurant diner pulling off the tablecloth to whip up a shower of wine, crockery and flowers.

Goodfellow presents his situations in an exuberantly exaggerated style. What you notice first is the clarity of color and the way in which light is locked into the pictures. He's been years developing the painting method he calls Micropointillism. The technique involves using the three primary colors and building the painting in layers. Areas of the can- vas are blocked off with water-solu-

Goodfellow takes a direct attack on other people's objects of devotion.

ble gum, and spattered pigment is ap- Other exhibits

plied with an airbrush. Then the canvases are hosed down to attain their luminescent look.

A British-born Detroiter who also has a studio in New York, Goodfel- low worked out Micropointillism with fellow painter Lowell Boileau. They taught the method to Sandy Zenisek, another Detroiter. There's been enough interest from other art- ists to talk about staging Michigan's first group Micropointillist show

next season.

Goodfellow's solo will be at Xochipilli, 568 N. Woodward, Birmingham, through Nov. 4.

Alberto Magnani (Robert Kidd Gallery, 107 Townsend, Birming- with cummerFbunds and bow ties. ham; through Nov. 4) A still life Dotted ties on button-down shirts. Socks, shorts and suit coats. With these images, New York painter Al- berto Magnani turns the gallery into his version of a haberdashery. He does what he does with so much flair, though, that a peculiar thing happens about halfway through the show. The shirts and ties take on an abstract quality that is as unexpected as it is handsome.

A second showing in the back gal-

lery features glass sculpture by Mark Abildgaard. His Totem Series stacks blue masks on odd white structures for a primal effect.

Little Mysteries (Paint Creek Center, 407 Pine, Rochester; through Nov. 6) Detroit artist Sheree Rensel chose four artists who speak in what she calls "an enigmatic lan- guage." Then she combined their work in an exhibit with unusual resonances. As a whole, the show can't be described as an unqualified success. Yet individual works are wonderful.

For instance, Tom Humes weaves a subtle spell with a mix of strange images that seem to spring from dreams via art history. The ritual of Baptism is conducted through pipes and a tub of water. Lucretia's Room contains two nudes and a pile of stones. One panel in a triptych is blank, yet it seems to hold some fascinating secret.

Also in top form is painter Jo Powers with figures of girls and women locked in congestive spaces. The artist gives out clues - a Revlon doll, the stairway in a girl's school, a flat landscape through a window. Then she leaves viewers free to come up with their own scenarios.

The other two exhibitors are San- dra Goodspeed with raku ceramics

ART

by JOY HAKANSON COLBY 

Paint Creek also has two other current shows worth a look -an in- stallation in Artspace by Ann Tread- well and mixed-media photographs by Robin Jensen.