Social issues a driving force in Mandle’s ‘re-emergence’

The first solo-artist exhibition at the Kettle Black Gallery is “re-emergence,” featuring the paintings and mixed media works of Gayle Wells Mandle. I chatted with her one afternoon while the installation process was nearing completion and we strolled through the space, discussing virtually every piece.

One of the first things she said to me that day was, and I’m paraphrasing, “No one notices a woman artist until she is in her 80s.” Of course, there is something to be said for experience, endurance and a stubborn stick-to-it-ness, regardless of gender.

But I suspect Mandle was being noticed as an artist long ago. She is a graduate of the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design in Washington, D.C., who went on to be awarded an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and who, with her late husband Roger Mandle, co-founded the Massachusetts Design Art & Technology Institute (DATMA) in 2016.

Perhaps it is the decades of her eternally youthful curiosity, her knowledge of art history and trends, and a career in interior design. But most importantly, Mandle’s serious engagement with contemporary hot-button issues including human rights, environmental concerns, increasing global authoritarianism, economic exploitation and her willingness to focus on them all in her art has made her ever more worthy of notice, attention and respect.

But it’s not finger-wagging. Her work is too layered, both figuratively and metaphorically speaking for that. It is ripe with mysterious calligraphy, purposeful obscuration, subtle meanings, mesmerizing surfaces, and unexpected color relationships. 

Mandle has written the following about her paintings: “I create them abstractly, juxtaposing the real with the imagined. I layer my archival photographs with the gestures of paint and various textures. I often write and erase text, mixing with old ledger papers and the handwriting of others. My process involves continual adding and editing, the story revealed and then partially veiled to engage in a ‘hide and seek dialogue’ with the observer.”

From 2008 until 2012, she lived in Qatar, where her husband was the director of the Qatar Museums Authority, where he oversaw the development of 12 museums, including the Museum of Islamic Art and the National Museum of Qatar. Mandle observed abject poverty within the shadows of the towers of the ostentatious rich.

Qatar’s oil wealth is facilitated by immigrants brought into the country to provide cheap labor and often had their passports confiscated to stop them from leaving the country. 

In Mandle’s “Boom Town,” shantytown shacks sit upon a surface of silvery-blue. Everything is dreary. There is illegible text. In one corner, there are three little pigs, and high above there is a message: “HUFF + PUFF.” The wolves are at the door.

There are dozens of shantytown shacks in another painting. They are primarily collages of small segments of corrugated cardboard, one of Mandle’s favorite collage materials. The ribs of the cardboard are not dissimilar from the corrugate of the metal shacks in which the poorest of the poor reside. It’s flood season. Many of the homes are underwater. It’s called “Deja Vu.” The high waters always return.

“Boys v. Girls” is ripe with symbolism. In Qatar, as in many other places, girls are not afforded the same liberty that boys are given. A white dove symbolizes a boy and it is perched high on a post, unencumbered by anything, free to fly high. Girls are represented by two black birds, isolated in tiny boxes, prisoners of their culture. Below, a wall of black corrugation, like a heavy veil or a prison wall, weighs it down even more.

“Bully Pulpit” features the horned bovine appearing to run across a black stage. Even more ambiguous than some of Mandle’s other work, it could refer to the ancient Greek myth of Zeus and Europa (a tale of a powerful god taking a maiden against her will), a volatile bull market, or just some plain ol’ BS. 

With “Rust Belt,” the artist’s obsession with corrugated cardboard is mildly kept in check by the application of pastel colors (lavender, pink and pale yellow) and by the inclusion of what appears to be a segment of duct tape. But it is the addition of a rusty, twisted band of metal that gives the work its name and works as a pretty terrific little visual pun.

“Swept Clean” includes corrugated cardboard and a photograph of a little wooden porch and a white stick figure painted on the clapboard. Smears of white and blue above the porch suggest a lone cloud against an afternoon sky. Attached to the painting, to the left of the glued-on photo, there is a well worn artist’s paintbrush. Another visual pun? The paintbrush looks a bit like a broom. Swept clean, indeed.

“Start Over” includes the partially obscured title of the work, likely done by Mandle using her finger in the wet paint. Other words are almost obliterated into non-existence but they remain like ghosts, unwilling to go to the other side. It is one of the most purely abstract paintings in the exhibition, save for a small photo of the upper floors of two adjoining buildings that serve to tether it to reality.

While Mandle’s influences likely include the color abstractions of Franz Kline, the simultaneously controlled and chaotic calligraphy painting of Cy Twombly, and the contemplative emptiness of Antoni Tapies, it is the pop assemblages and multi layered paintings of Robert Rauschenberg that seem to weigh the heaviest.

Her “Libro d’Oro,” is a real hammer on a real piece of fabric on a real chair in front of a painting of a chair with a real piece of fabric. But no hammer.

That’s about as Rauschenbergian as it gets. Take notice.

Gayle Wells Mandle’s exhibition “re-emergence” will be on display at the Kettle Black Gallery, 1 Johnny Cake Hill, New Bedford, until Aug. 30.

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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