Scott Espeseth's Bridge From the Real to the Surreal

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Scott Espeseth, Watch your Back, watercolor on paper, 46x34"

When art was confronted with the documentary possibilities of photography in middle of the 19th century, it was a moment of existential reckoning. No longer society’s go-to for objective transcription of the visible world, traditional art was forced to go inward, seeking new, subjective, interior worlds that the camera couldn’t access. Expressionism, Surrealism, Abstraction resulted and have thrived for so long now that we often overlook the possibilities of art to capture the finer details of the observable Universe; that is, outside of foundations classes in art schools.

Scott Espeseth’s finely rendered works on paper—currently on view in the Marian Gallery at Mount Mary University (through Nov. 22)—function as a bridge between the detailed mundanity of the existent material world and the surreal strangeness of those invented. His attempt to reconcile these two dimensions is far weirder than one simply reveling in a dreamy, interior fantasy. The exhibition’s title, “Stillness and Grey,” reflects the banality of the show’s subject matter: An air hockey table, a plate of dish sponges, a coverless light switch, a bathroom vanity... all executed in either black and white or monochromatic red or blue. They are unspectacular things uninflected with formal flourish: no dramatic diagonals, forced perspectives, raking theatrical light or other high Baroque-style visual crescendos.

A virtuously painted black and white watercolor called Contractor Bag features the titular object resting statically and slightly monumental. It’s seen from a lower vantage than one would normally view such a meaningless object, but with its glistening, taught, opaque skin and portrait-like framing, the bag takes on an unexpected anthropomorphic fullness that makes it more than simply an observational drawing. Without seeing such a painting, it’s fair to wonder whether this is simply creative inference. As the oddities mount, however, it becomes clear that Espeseth is slowly crafting a larger picture shaped by both interior and exterior energies.

Adjacent to the contractor bag is an unassuming ballpoint pen drawing of a door in a hallway leading into a darkened room. By itself, it is an unremarkable domestic interior, but with the residue of other sad household items still on our retinas, it becomes purposeful, animated and eerie. The menacing eeriness continues to mount as we recognize the glaring absence of human beings, even while their stuff is everywhere. This makes the setting feel real and imagined, abandoned and inhabited, at the same time. In all their slow, still, prosaic drama, they leave us with a Lynchian cinematic quality that lingers and lingers like ants on fingers.

Another painting of a plastic bag, this one clear and stuffed with shredded paper, is a comic foil to the square-shouldered, blue-collar counterpart. Where the contractor bag towered, this one is seen from a higher vantage, cropped just above its head, squatty, and an altogether more sensitive creature. You can’t avoid making a symbolic connection between his shredded insides and transparent skin. There are no proper humans around, but this guy is a more-than-serviceable human stand-in. The show, however, is not completely absent of humans. One untitled painting shows a child ducking behind shrubbery, averting his face. It functions as a kind of tell in “Stillness and Grey.” It lets us know for certain, if we weren’t there already, that the absence in this work means the presence of something else.

By dialing down the sensationalism and superficial drama, Espeseth sets a subdued tone for his representational rendering to thrive. It’s not often we get this deep a dive into the interior of an artist’s head through so much common exterior subject matter, and it’s satisfying to see Espeseth pull it off effectively.