David Bates at Dunn and Brown Contemporary
by Charles Dee Mitchell, ART IN AMERICA
![sunflowersI_y[1]](http://arthurrogergallery.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/sunflowersI_y1.jpg)
"Sunflowers I", 2001
Bates showed an array of painted wooden reliefs, painted bronzes and paintings on canvas and panel. When he loads color onto the reliefs, he creates a play between illusionism and three-dimensionality that from a distance confounds the works’ true nature. Up close, the tension between lush paint and jagged surface engages the viewer in Bates’s process. In Tulips, each red flower is the size of a fist, with chunky wooden petals and pistils that form a small abstract painting. The Sunflowers in a Vase are spiky and aggressive. His Forsythia tumble over the construction as though barely held in place by their stems.
The paintings ranged from the very traditional White Roses, where succulent flowers sprout densely from foliage in a green glass vase, to an over-the-top rendition of three Sunflowers, in which extravagantly painted blossoms push forward in the shallow space as if straining to become like their three-dimensional counterparts in a nearby relief.
The abrupt and sometimes even brutal transitions from drawing to painting to sculpture in Bates’ oeuvre are never disconcerting, due to the sophistication and enthusiasm he brings to each piece, the sureness of his handling and the sheer pleasure he takes in the materials.