Alexandre Hogue: An American Visionary--Paintings and Works on Paper

9: The Late Works

9 : The Late Works number of works produced during the 1970s and 1980s allude to the grand design of nature , of emptiness and fullness, continuity and change. At times, they may transpose the mundane into icons of large meaning. AHogue’s constant evolution from one approach or method to another reads as a metaphor for the randomness of life’s events. Through drawing, Hogue reflects the natural world in order to heighten awareness of our place in the universalorder.Ashis imagerydeveloped, the workconsistently invoked personal experience while addressing the most primal of human concerns: the difference between self and other, between transcendence and metamorphosis, between that which can be controlled and that which cannot. Some images tap into memories of strange places and the wonder that both attracts and frightens us. Vulnerable to the transformative events of an engaged life, they investigate notions of identity and metamorphosis , a kind of reassembling of the spirit, the mind, the body, and the environment. Hogue breaks up, wrenches open, and disrupts the familiar, thereby creating new realms of significance . Such an endeavor can only be described in terms of revelation, a profoundly physical awareness of our momentary place within a broader order, a chance to ponder what we are seeing and how we are living, to feel a kinship with ancestral memories from deep time, to realize our interdependence and interconnections. In Migration (1971), two bull snakes slither up an embankment between the seemingly writhing, twisting roots of a dead juniper tree. Elements of the picture plane move in and out of the space, creating a visual counterpoint, a complex interrelation of rhythms. Here we see the artist’s extraordinary ability to build up areas of activity without losing clarity of mass or structure. The intricate patterning of snake skins, rocks, sand, and roots camouflages what at first glance might be a total abstraction, or mischievous shape-shifting. 180 chapter 9 Migration 1971 Black and Brown Ink on Paper 27”x 19” Collection of Duayne Hatchett, Buffalo, N.Y. Photo courtesy of The Philbrook Museum of Art, Inc., Tulsa, Oklahoma the late works 181 of life going on in ways that transcend or are at least different from human ways. In the responses and habits of animals we see nature revealing itself intimately. Prairie Fire Confusion (1987) reminds us that nature’s wrath can assume a terrible sort of triage, deciding which animal is to be saved and which must be consigned to the dead. Here groups of animals are engulfed in white streams of smoke and trapped by a ring of plumelike flames. Panicky horses and antelope dash wildly in terror. Snakes attempt to slither away from the blaze. Two coyotes turn and confront the fire, another lowers its head, resigned to its fate. Rabbits leap in various directions and birds attempt to fly above the billows of smoke, which converge like gyres over the flat, grassy plain. The isolated farmhouse in the distance and iridescent blue sky underscore the power of nature’s haunting transparency. Hogue’s incisive watercolor reminds us that we are but temporary sojourners on a strange planet. There is no protective zone around any of us; anything can happen to anyone at any time. “It shows the reaction of animals that I have seen happen,” said Hogue. “This sort of thing has to be done by an artist. A photograph can’t capture that because it’s covered by smoke—but I know what’s going on in there. I’ve seen the animals come and go from one place to the other momentarily. A few horses are still running, but the others have halted because they realize they can’t get out of there. The same thing has happened to the coyotes, wolves, and rabbits with fire all around them. This little fellow [a wolf] has given up. There’s nothing he can do about it.” Hogue implies that the laws of nature treat all of them alike. Each animal, however, was drawn with care and sympathy, each given its characteristic features and expression. Indeed, beyond the sheer visual intensity is an equally unmistakable earnestness. Prairie Fire Confusion is charged with feeling and a deep sense of conviction, in addition to an eye-widening panoply of vivid color. The stylized movement of animals and flames is seemingly frozen in a flat manner evocative of Native American paintings, which similarly employ static and dynamic elements...