By Paul Varnell

Contributing writer

With the recent formation of a gay artists network and the opening of the Center on Halsted, gay and lesbian artists for the first time have an opportunity to participate as a group in the city’s annual Chicago Artists Month.

The exhibit mounted in the main hallway of the Center’s second floor includes 21 paintings, drawings and photographs representing the work of 15 artists as selected and curated by David Joseph. A few highlights include: “Chicago—Emerald City” by young Matthew Lew, one of the most attractive pieces in his recent output. The painting shows portions of the Chicago skyline, mostly in bright green colors, crisscrossed by light gray horizontal and vertical stripes. The gay-allusive title scarcely needs specifying.

Rowen Murphy’s contribution titled “Femme Fatale” is a brightly colorful caricature of a standing woman somewhat distorted in the manner of Chicago Imagist Karl Wirsum. It is open to question whether the painting is meant as a serious representation of a femme fatale or a comment on the distortions or exaggerations of natural femininity required to be a femme fatale.

One of the most remarkable images is Sean Fader’s cross-gender “I Want to Put You On, Raini” It shows a slender young man with visibly hairy chest lying on a couch and holding a glass of wine. But he has a zipper pulled part way up the front of his body that is part of a female skin with a gently curving breast he is surrounding himself with.

Perhaps the single most impressive piece, and one of the few that seems explicitly gay, is Curtis Bewley’s painting “Seduction of Adam.” In Bewley’s revisionist account of the temptation story in Genesis, a handsome male tempter (Michelangelo had portrayed the serpent as female) with a Machiavellian smile and a serpentine lower body is holding an almost equally handsome Adam warmly and offering him the fateful apple. Adam for his part seems pliant and, his eyes closed, very close to swooning. Certainly most gay men would be sorely tempted by such a handsome seducer. The painting is beautifully conceived and executed. Why is this man’s work not better known?

Two other works deserves special mention. People looking at Rob Bondgren’s untitled piece briefly may miss the inconspicuous details. The painting is dark on the entire left side and the lower right appears to contain a flower of some sort. But scattered mischievously and unobtrusively through the upper right quadrant are male body parts: a torso, a chest and several penises or penis heads.

And Jordan Kost contributes “Gomez,” a small—4 inches by 6 inches—and delicately shaded affectionate drawing of a cat. The seated cat is viewed from the side like many Renaissance formal portraits.

The three designated “featured artists” are photographer Jerry Pritikin and painters Eric Sosa and Juarez Hawkins. C. C. Carter, the Center’s director of community, cultural and legal programs, said they were featured because they represent different demographic segments in the community.

“Since this was our first exhibition at the Center we wanted to make sure it was reflective of as many sub-communities in our whole community as possible,” Carter said. Pritikin is a gay senior, Sosa is young and Hispanic and Hawkins is female and African-American.

Pritikin’s three photographs are primarily of documentary interest. They are records of events in San Francisco’s tumultuous gay activism near the end of the 1970s, including an anti-Anita Bryant march and a portion of the “White Night” riots that broke out when a jury refused to convict Dan White, the killer of gay city supervisor Harvey Milk, of murder.

Sosa’s work is abstract but one amusing piece purports to imitate the abstract pattern of white icing on a chocolate cake—making it realistic and abstract at the same time. Hawkins’ four pieces are monocolor red or brown female nudes—some of them self-portraits, according to Carter, who knows the artist.

Other artists represented include Bohdan Gernaga, Bret Grafton, Rob Porazinsky, Betty Lark Ross, Elizabeth Wuerffel and Daniel Zagotta.

ART NOTES:

The Dittmar Gallery in Northwestern Univ.’s Norris Student Center hosts “…And Our Art Lives On: A Legacy of Survival from BEHIV,” an exhibition of artwork created by clients in the AIDS service organization. Nov. 8-Dec. 12. Hours: Mon.-Sun., 10 a.m.-10 p.m.

The Peter Jones Gallery, 1806 W. Cuyler, second floor, presents “Crazy 8,” a group show by eight Chicago gay artists, including Frank Fruzyna, Izzo, Jason Messinger, Joey Wozniak and others. Nov. 3-Dec. 2. Hours: Sat.-Sun., 3-6 p.m. Opening reception Nov. 3, 6-11 p.m.

Roscoe’s, 3356 N. Halsted, displays work by Chuck Myers during November. Myers’ past work has included urban Chicago streetscapes and some still-lifes.

The Jean Albano Gallery, 215 W. Superior, presents prints and drawings by long-time Chicago Sun-Times cartoonist (1962-1991) Bill Mauldin and author, playwright and Village Voice cartoonist Jules Feiffer, Oct. 26-Dec. 1. Gallery hours: Tues.-Fri. 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sat. 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

—P.V.