Eugene Baguskas’ fantasy-world paintings at Charles More is a reminder of why it was always such a great gallery, and it’s great to see it back in operation.
Baguskas looks as fresh as ever, with romantic, northwoods imagery so transformed by the imagination that it takes on a storybook or fairytale aura. The imagined, heroic, somewhat narrative worlds of the next generation–Joy Feasely and Clare Rojas–come to mind.
It’s a world where salmon race upstream for salvation in patterned rows, where moose contemplate the world around them much they way an artist does, where birch trees seem to become symbols for strength and flexibility. Even water takes on a materiality and weight that’s fraught with meaning.
The brush work is loose, bold mark-making that implies a rhythmic physicality more than a rhythmic trance. I want to walk in these woods and swim in these streams with the creatures who make their home there.
