John Reuter: InvestigationsThis body of work not only excited me in terms of the imagery but also in terms of the painterly progress it represented. Not only did I develop the touch that seemed appropriate for the imagery but experiments in scale led to the multipanel transfers of the late eighties. The largest pieces were nine panels and equaled the scale of the paintings I was then making. One intriguing aspect was the grid of overlapping sheets, which seemed to appear and disappear as one viewed the piece. I had not been as excited about the technical process of my work since the SX-70s of ten years earlier. Here it would be the gesture of the figure or the expression on the face that would determine the power of image. It was a very different way of working. The original images had little or no color, so it had to be invented as I went along. This allowed for a significant range of emotional expression. These pieces would vary widely depending on my mode when working on them. They are probably the most painterly pieces I have produced and it is no coincidence to me that they were made during a time when I was doing more painting than my photographic work. It was during this time that my ambition was to be a painter and I fully intended to leave my photographic work behind. This ambition finally fell victim to a lack of time as I realized that I could never spend the time that painting would require. I would often work on the same images as paintings and transfers and I also began to see that the interactive reworking of the transfers yielded a more interesting piece than the painting. I have never regarded it as lost time though; I learned a great deal that still informs my work today. |
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The Androgyn series gave way to works from Pere La Chaise cemetery in Paris. Begun in 1988 this series overlapped the Androgyn work by nearly a year. It became apparent to me that I needed a break from the conceptual narrative that the previous series demanded. The sculptures in the cemetery provided a great deal to me in terms of expressive poses and degree of dissolution that reminded me of my own manipulations. They fit perfectly with the kind of reworking I was doing and in fact inspired me to work even more expressively. These images served as a framework in which I would force the failure of the transfer process more than usual. The "real" image would emerge in the reworking process, as my interaction with the image on paper would develop. "Spirits of Pere La Chaise I (Classical Head)" was one of the first in this series and still one of my favorites.