WILD WEST SHOW MEETS POP CULTURE
Bold, brassy, bawdy, Ali Fitzgerald’s colossal “On Virgin Land” is an opera of unstretched painted canvas now sprawling floor to ceiling at Art Palace. What better way to express her fascination with the grandiose mythology of the Wild West than to take her vision outside the confines of the picture frame, let it ripple all the way around the gallery and even splash off the canvas and directly on to the wall.
A University of Texas graduate student, Fitzgerald was one of 36 out of more than 600 artists to be selected this year for the Texas Biennial.
“Michelangelo meets Mad Magazine” is how the artist describes her expressive, Pop-informed figurative style. And that’s apt. Her cast of characters – among others, a buxom pistol-toting gal, a grim-faced American Indian family, a bikini-clad female bronco rider, a toothless old cowboy – all boogie together, jumbling on top of each other like some crazy cowboy comic book or else a vast Renaissance painting. Or both.
There’s an irresistible energy in Fitzgerald’s paintings. Really, it’s manic. Grotesque and comic, the oddballs who populate “On Virgin Land” seem to be in constant motion. A million stories ripple across their kinetic faces or shoot from their intense eyes. It’s a brilliantly theatrical effect.
But don’t let all that opera fool you: On each of two exposed gallery windows, Fitzgerald has painted a portly male tourist, complete with Bermuda shorts, Hawaiian shirt and a camera covering his face.
OK, so just who exactly is (or who isn’t) the tourist in Fitzgerald’s Wild West?
“On Virgin Land: Ali Fitzgerald” continues 7 to 9 p.m. Thursdays, noon to 5 p.m. Saturday and by appointment through Dec. 15. Art Palace, 2109 E. Cesar Chavez St. Free. 496-0687. www.artpalacegallery.com. -Jeanne Claire van Ryzin