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Brian Frink explores complexity of relationships in latest exhibition

'Flowers and Landscapes’

Art faculty member Brian Frink took a meandering route to his latest exhibition at the Emy Frentz Arts Guild.

2009-04-03
By Amanda Dyslin, Free Press Features Editor [published in The Free Press, Mankato, MN, 3/20/2009]

For an artist such as Brian Frink, whose pieces are as complex as they are beautiful, that way can be a meandering one.

Canvases, boards and linens decorated with oils of varying shades lean against easels, sit atop tables and hang on white walls, some completed and some in progress. Surrounding each in Frink’s main-floor studio, a path to his genius can be seen.

Yogurt cups filled with paint matching the shades seen on the paintings sit on nearly every surface. Brushes accompany them, some fresh and some hardened with unwashed paint.

There are lids, rags, latex gloves, plas­tic bags, tools to mix and spread, thinners and, of course, empty and half-full tubes of paint. All of this tells the story of Frink’s journey to that mystical point of a “finished” piece.

“It’s kind of like taking a car trip, like you’re going to Seattle,” said Frink, an art professor at Minnesota State University.

Frink knows his destination with some of his pieces, where he’s going with his painting, but he doesn’t map out a route.

“You might have a flat tire, or your starter might go out,” he said. “But you eventually get there. ... When it’s finished, it tells me a story.”

Looking at some of the pieces included in his exhibit, “Flowers and Landscapes” at the Emy Frentz Arts Guild, it’s hard to imagine each painting began with a single stroke. Each is so layered with color and texture, and each stroke seems as organic as it does planned.

Nature was the big inspiration for this collection. Paintings of landscapes and mountains and a repeated image of vases of flowers ended up dominating recent work, although he didn’t plan it that way.

So much determines the direction of a painting, he said, pointing to a piece he had recently started. Frink responds to the surfaces he works on. Linen guides his hand differently than canvas. Even his brushes seem to have their own stories to tell, whether they’re stiff with age and overuse or fresh from the packaging.

He even used a brush completely crust­ed over with reddish paint on the piece he was working on, demonstrating the different kinds of markings and textures he can achieve with different tools.

“I don’t have a city in mind for this one,” he said. “I’m thinking landscape, though.”

Certainly, the vases of flowers are easy to see in several of his paintings. But upon closer look, there is more being said about relationships with nature — a bold yellow watercolor sky, for instance, show­ing sunlight beaming down on lightly sketched flowers, or a deep blue backdrop dotted with snow.

“The subject is very clear, but then you have this world around it,” he said.

It’s the complexity of the larger rela­tionship of his subjects that most inter­ests Frink. He looks outside the window of his rural Mankato studio and sees ele­ments of nature that inspire him, such as trees. But he doesn’t concentrate on the lines and borders of the trunks and branches. Rather, he sees the patterns and textures the mess of trees make as a whole, their relationship to the wind and rain and ground — “ which I think is more interesting,” he said.

“Painting has to be specific, but metaphorical — about the larger human issues,” he said. “Every artist has to iden­tify what they want to talk about in the world.”

One of the larger pieces in his show, “Hunting the Strange Animal,” was inspired by a hunting trip he took with his son-in-law. Frink let his son-in-law do the actual shooting, but he helped field dress a deer.

The sun and obvious mountain images can be seen at the top of the painting.

(Frink thinks of Mount Kato when he looks at the piece.) An animal image can be seen in the middle, and an almost ghost-like human figure can be seen across the way, headed in the deer’s direction.

It’s OK with Frink when viewers ask questions or need guidance in seeing the images he intended. He enjoys hearing what others make of his work, as well, because they’re contributing to the art, telling him something of their own expe­rience.

“I think it’s all about misinterpreta­tions,” he said. “Viewers like to tell their own story.”

Frink’s watercolors lean more toward realism than his oils. A beach and island scene are easily detected in one painting, although his signature abstract flourishes are also included, such as teardrop shaped pencil drawings in the water that represent trapped air.

Watercolors are reserved for the upstairs studio space, where the hard­wood floors are finished and wouldn’t benefit from falling splotches of oil paint.

The unfinished floors of the main-floor studio, however, welcome the accidents.

Frink lives on the old poor farm just outside of Mankato, a live-in canvas in itself, upon which Frink and his wife, Wilbur, have created quite a masterpiece.

The history of the home and its architec­ture, coupled with the Frinks’ bold color choices, modern upgrades and personal artwork, could inspire even the unlikeliest of artists.

As Frink points out the various pieces he has in progress, it’s clear there’s no shortage of inspiration here.

If You Go:

What: “Flowers and Landscapes,” recent work by Brian Frink

When: Runs through April 30 at the Emy Frentz Arts Guild, 523 S. 2nd St. in Mankato. Opening reception is 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday at the Emy Frentz.
 

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