West Chester Gallery Walk Tonight

Tonight’s First Friday offers several intriguing exhibits from the “Bigger is Better” exhibit at the Art Trust to a group show focusing on nature themes at the Serpentine Gallery.

Before you get too overwhelmed with the idea of absorbing so much art – not possible unless you’re a sponge  –   consider Sunset Hill’s solo show for  artist William M. Basciani.  

There’s so much here, you might do a double take, questioning whether  Basciani’s lively, action-packed narrative paintings are on the verge of jumping off the canvases. If that would occur, the party-goers might  include – and this is the short list –  a Christmas nutcracker with a deranged expression,   a medieval woman with long flowing hair, a dark haired woman in a requisite little black dress,  and a Minnie Mouse with an assault rifle.

Should I mention the so-called starving artist auction?  The latest of a string of self-portraits, it depicts eight aspects of the artistic personality (i.e. Basciani’s) including the artist as the carnival showman, as a dancing monkey, a doubting Thomas, and a shadowy figure.

Considering that Basciani is a classically-trained painter, meticulous in his preparation such as mixing his own paint (he aims for a certain fluidity), you might think that Basciani has become the manic figure – the one that also appears in the “starving artist” painting.

There is a relatively simple explanation:  Basciani, who was born in 1980, has merely moved to the next level  of a long artistic career. As he describes it, the paintings are not about him – they are you, the viewer.  They are the “bomb in your face,” or the “dream-like” quality of your subconscious. (There are no leaping lambs to count here, I should say, but there are rabbits!) 

The process is not unlike that of a creative writer who masters grammar, then tries imitation, before moving on (or not) to finding a voice, a readership and originality – again, and again.

Basciani mastered the basics long before he studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (he completed his first portrait at the age of 10). He also picked up a few added skills such as carving images into soft pine (take note of the woodcut in the show) and constructing elaborately carved picture frames that expand on a painting’s theme.

 Perhaps it’s no surprise that Basciani comes from a can-do family - he is the fourth generation of a prominent mushroom growing family – but it also takes a lot of effort to be a professional artist these days.  Basciani could easily keep to one subject – his animal portraits are especially captivating –and continue to paint an occasional landscape and portrait, all framed with his signature touch, boards reclaimed from the mushroom houses.

Many Academy painters focus on what is known as the artistic trinity – figure, landscape and still life – and Basciani is no exception. He also continues to paint plein air, or outdoors, something Academy students have done since the last century.  

However, Basciani is one artist who couldn’t escape his background even if his life depended on it.  His association with the Brandywine tradition and the Wyeth family is long, and well, deep.  (Insert a Basciani style witticism here about what could be politely called “mushroom soil.”) 

Jokes aside, over the years,  Basciani has met many of the key players in what I call the dramatic, story-telling undercurrent of the tradition.  They all seem to tap into a certain magic realism – a love of Halloween jack-a-lanterns,  for instance , painted like rolling heads. 

A few specific facts: Basciani’s early mentor was Bill Ewing, an Academy-trained artist who was close friends with the late Andrew Wyeth.  Basciani also spent many summers  in Maine, where he was given free access to Wyeth’s  studio.   In Chadds Ford, he had a studio where the previous occupants included Bo Bartlett, considered one of America’s most important living figurative painters and magic realists.

No wonder Basciani has absorbed so many influences and now has the good fortune of seeing what will happen next – to watch, for instance, a composition grow like “ivy,” as he calls laying down paint, and spring to life from a germ of an idea. 

At this stage,  Basciani has a range of work to offer, all seen as different a “mini  series,” be it commentary (e.g. the Minnie Mouse painting) , evocative floral paintings, or the narrative paintings created through dramatic action and metaphorical imagery.

 As  Basciani says, this solo show is his most personal “yet.”

William Basciani’s solo exhibition opens tonight

• When: 5 to 9 p.m.

• Where:   Sunset Hill Gallery, 23 North High Street, West Chester

•        Features:  Free and open to the public. The exhibition continues through November 4th. 

         Website:  www.basciani.com

Gallery phone:    610-692-03374

• Price: Free