Bob Lucas’ latest show titled Nonlocal, at the Jeffrey Moose Gallery on Bainbridge Island, WA, presents us with his solo works as well as collaborations with artists Tim Beckstrom and Gary Nicholson.
Once again Lucas presents us with an oeuvre that carries us through and beyond the personal into a paradigm of universal expression that is both archetypal and dreamlike. If one could ask for anything more from an artist I don’t know what that would be. Lucas’ works are multi-media creations as befits an expression that seeks to engage us on a multitude of levels. They stand like holograms of the human spirit, captured by one who dives deep within the psyche to document the rich yet dark foundational substrata upon whose surface our day to day cares seem to float like the random sparkles on a wind swept sea.
Lucas’ opening work is called “Show Statement Portrait” which is reminiscent of the first line of the Tao Te Ching “The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao”. A glass enameled and fused image of Lucas enigmatically pointing to, or maybe holding up, an ear surrounded by some sort of wavelike pattern, (sound waves or the Higgs field,) that itself occludes a hand written “show statement” from the past. This piece is indicative of his trust in his own intuitive process. For Bob Lucas every foray into the morass of art making results in a self portrait. But Lucas’ self portraits, and thus his work, occlude the rationalizations required by the ego so that he may reveal a deeper, hidden self.
Lucas’ “Family Portrait” from the collection of Margaret and Richard Moose, is a waking portal into the realm of dream. To try and interpret this piece is to miss its impact completely. An army of psychologists, philosophers, clergy, and scientists could wax poetical ad nauseam yet still miss the heart of this art. It is a dream experience made manifest in space and time. In this, and other of his works, Lucas shows us that our dream world and our waking world aren’t just intricately connected, they are one.
In his piece “Lights Over Vicksburg” Lucas’ internal compass steers him to combine historical “events” with “dreamlike” power. The incongruity of the brutality of actual war making (the Civil War) and the imaginary power of space aliens being involved in that war could not portray the polarity of the human psyche in a form that reveals more chiaroscuro than this.
Lucas’ piece “3D Cube” is a masterwork of the integration of the material and the etherial. The profundity of its simplicity leaves us wondering whether we can ever really see the truth behind the appearances. Every piece in this show is a tour de force, though easily passed over by the worshipers of superficiality, their power is fed by nature itself.
And so lastly, but not in the least, I want to mention Lucas’ piece “Dis Coagulation”, a piece of art where the dream world meets the devil. Nightmares are real and events like Dachau and Dresden, Stalingrad and slavery meet. Lucas is willing to suffer in order to bring these images to consciousness, not as propaganda but as art. Small, easily ignored yet powerfully manifest in space and time. Many are called to witness but few will leave a trace. Bob Lucas is one of the few.