I traveled to the Temple College Visual Arts Center Gallery on November 5th so that I could visit the exhibition by Jeffie Brewer, “Idiot Boy.” I’ve never been to an art exhibit before, honestly. I was excited to see this exhibit, as it was only the work of a single artist. To me, this makes viewing the work a more intimate experience, and you really get to know the artist by inspecting the multiple pieces from within their mind. Without other artist’s work present, you can have a purer experience. Jeff grew up as the son of the owners of a junk yard, which contributed to his ability to see the beauty within the mundane – something I think is very prevalent in his work. He has used his talents to create an impressive career for himself by starting two companies, working as an illustrator and designer for an advertising company, and has been teaching art professionally for almost twenty years. He even designed and built his own home, which is something that not a lot of people can say.
Jeff seems to have a lot of knowledge and experience to share, and I’m happy that some of that is shared both through his art, and his years of teaching. When you enter the gallery, you are greeted on the right by a statement from the artist. He explains within his statement that “Idiot Boy” is ‘a giant self-portrait,’ and is a deep look into himself; described as a ‘skin suit that is Jeffie,’ controlled by a team of squirrels. This humor gives some insight into the fun and abstract nature of his works. Glancing around the room at his work, you can see that this holds true, as you can tell he thoroughly enjoys the process of creating his work, even if the piece is meant to have a more serious tone. The time and effort he put into these pieces really comes through, allowing us to have the opportunity to learn more about the man that is Jeffie Brewer. As you look around the exhibit, the abstractness of his work stands out, and you can really see his preferred mediums are working with oil pastels, as well as different metals to create his sculptures. With the sculptures, it seems there are two distinct styles as far as the coloring goes – they’re either a single, flat color spread evenly over the sculpture, or he creates a rustic look by leaving or adding various scratches, patches of rust, or other cosmetic “imperfections.”
His works on paper seems to favor vibrant colors over others, but some of them have a darker tone to them, and utilize colors that match that. Many of the designs seem simple, but when you consider the effort required to come up with an idea, draft it, then execute it, it’s amazing. The artistic ability of humans fascinates me, and the fact that something that seems so simple can be incredibly complex at the same time baffles me. One particular piece that I was intrigued by was the work titled, “Meditations on looking and seeing.” This piece was created in 2018, and seems to be a part of a series of steel sculptures, based on other works titled the similarly on his website. The piece I viewed in the gallery was almond-shaped, like an eye, with an off-center hole cut out to resemble the pupil and iris. The dimensions were close to 2’ by 1’ by 6”, and the color was a flat, even, vibrant green. Looking at this, I felt a sense of comfort – the simple shape and color of the piece are very inviting. To me, this sculpture represented the ‘third eye,’ and reminds us that looking and seeing are separate, but related actions. Many of us spend our days looking at a variety of things, but to actually see something for what it really is, or for what it can be, is much different. There was a pastel on paper artwork that I found extremely interesting, and enjoyed looking at. The more you look at it, the more random it seems. It was quite a large piece, maybe 3.5’ by 4’, and looked quite fun. In fact, the work was actually tiled just that – “Fun.” It consisted of several seemingly unrelated parts, which is why I think I found it so interesting. The background of the piece is a large, crudely drawn grid pattern in a dark blue color, with a light blue color filling in the white space.
Along with the grid pattern, there are various white lines and shapes throughout the entire background. The focal point of the piece is an asymmetrical shape, that slightly resembles the shape of ginger root, the color being a combination of off-white, pink, blue, and yellow; giving it, in my opinion, a more organic color. In the upper right-hand corner are small circles, with one having a ring around it, leading me to believe these resemble planets. The planets are drawn in the same dark blue as the grid pattern for the background, as well as another small drawing just to the right of the focal point, representing a city scape. There were other small patterns and drawings through out the background, but the two that stood out the most to me were the black word, “NO” written in the middle on the far left, and the red word, “FUN,” writing in the bottom right corner. Once you take in everything that’s going on in the artwork, it seems that these two words are meant to be put together to form, “No fun.” To me, this statement and other elements of the piece come together to point out that art should be fun – you shouldn’t subscribe to other’s rules when creating your art, and need to just have fun with it. After all, isn’t art supposed to be an expression of an individual’s creativity? This was, above all, my favorite piece, and experiencing it in person brought joy to my heart – as if I were a kid again. The final composition I viewed before leaving the gallery was one titled, “Junkyard cloud.” This work was a single cloud, made form steel. It was about 1.5’ wide, 1’ tall, and 6” deep. The color was white, but the surface also contained various blemishes of rust.
