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Sculptor Eric Lintala is old school. How old school? His subject matter is derived from prehistoric rock art, petroglyphs and pictographs that have been found in earthen caves or under vast cliffs, primarily in the Southwestern United States. That stone age art depicts images of early humankind, great beasts of the land and the sky, and natural phenomena of all kinds.
Those ancient drawings were inscribed, pecked and painted onto stone and little is known of the early inhabitants who created them. Their intimate knowledge of their world and why they felt the need to draw at all remains a mystery.
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Lintala makes sculptural figures of steel and bronze based on those “cave paintings” with nothing but respect and quite a bit of awe for those ancient artists, who surely were trying to grasp something unknowable, something that sought to figure out their own place in a harsh world.
They were deeply immersed in nature in an almost unfathomable manner in contemporary times. That led to something unexpected. The creation of culture in the form of art, storytelling, cosmology, mythology, history and the desire to understand the world beyond animal need are the hallmarks of civilization.
Lintala is old school in another way as well. In an era of sophisticated (and admittedly pricey) metal cutting equipment such as lasers and waterjets, he uses an oxy-acetylene torch to cut the figures, and grinders and sanders to smooth the edges.
As a sculpture instructor at the Swain School of Design and at UMass Dartmouth for well over 40 years, he has a fondness for the distinctive sharp and acrid smell of burning carbon, the wisps of smoke, the relentless sparks and the feel of the tools in his hands. He’s romancing the steel. And he’s damn good at it.
Works by Eric Lintala
Lintala speaks of his sculptures as a way to create a narrative that involves human, cultural and natural events from the past and the present. The challenge to him is to continue on and to honor those that preceded him. He does that admirably in “Recovered Dreams & New Creations,” an exhibition at the Dartmouth Cultural Center.
“The First Poet” is a bronze figure with an ovoid head on which a bird sits. Across his shoulders there is a staff on which two more birds have settled. They may be ravens, common in the respective mythologies of the Norse and the Indigenous peoples of North America, among others.
Another bronze work is “Yucca Man,” an odd figure devoid of a head or arms. What appear to be vertebrae rise above an oddly shaped torso and two spindly legs. An infantile penis hangs in the air like an afterthought.
“Taken Away” features an elk-like creature swallowing a humanoid, head already down its throat, with the rest of the body to quickly follow. “Together” is a pair of long-legged, knobby-kneed birds, perhaps herons or egrets, with their necks craning upward. Below them is grass like the teeth of a saw.
“He Who Stole the Sun” depicts a figure with a skeletal grin, perhaps dancing and bending at the waist as if in agony or ecstasy. His legs suggest faun or satyr or devil. “Transformative Shaman” is an androgynous figure with two long horns erupting from its head, perhaps captured in a state of transformation.
“Question of Balance” is a large wading bird trying to devour a tiny woman who is attempting to flee her destiny.
Lintala is a philosophical and flawless craftsman who makes no attempt to decipher or explain the petroglyphs which he translates into the three-dimensional. He (and we) can let the mystery be.
Exhibiting with him is his former student Bruce Bailey, a onetime software engineer who returned to painting, printmaking and sculpture in his retirement. Like his former mentor, Bailey is inspired by ancient cultures, history, science fiction and music.
While there are a number of his works worthy of contemplation and further exploration, it is the three large scale oil paintings of significant historical figures that he displayed that I found most intriguing.
Works by Bruce Bailey
“Florence Nightingale” is a portrait of perhaps the most famous nurse in American history. Rendered primarily in shades of brown, with just a few touches of orange and white, Bailey’s rendition is oddly and perfectly reminiscent of Marcel Duchamp’s 1912 masterpiece “Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2.” If that was intentional, that’s terrific. And if it’s not, it’s still terrific.
Bailey’s somewhat otherworldly portrait of mathematician Georg Cantor, heightened by his fleshtone which fluctuates between ashy white and a mildly disturbing shade of lavender, is made yet more intriguing by what appear to be inexplicable wisps of smoke nearby.
“Two and Two Make Five” is a symbolically loaded and frenzied portrait of the famous antifa George Orwell. There are six fingers on one of his hands which is a wonderful wink-wink, nod-nod to a certain passage in “Nineteen Eighty-Four.”
Read it while you still can.
“Recovered Dreams & New Creations” is on display at the Dartmouth Cultural Center, 404 Elm St., Dartmouth, until June 27.
Don Wilkinson has been writing art reviews, artist profiles and cultural commentary on the South Coast for over a decade. He has been published in local newspapers and regional art magazines. He is a graduate of the Swain School of Design and the CVPA at UMass Dartmouth. Email him at dwilkinson@newbedfordlight.org
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