Innocence Found
June 9 – September 4, 2004

From The New York Times, July 30, 2004

"INNOCENCE FOUND," DFN, 176 Franklin Street, TriBeCa (212)334-3400, through Aug. 27. Symbols of innocence in this theme show are mostly generic - lots of children and tame animals - but they are beautifully realized in many of the 38 works. Look for Tom Birkner's realist painting of teenage lovers strolling through a small town; Loretta Lux's luminous photograph of a little girl in a bridal gown; David Humphrey's surrealistically goofy painting of two white cats and a peanut butter sandwich; and Dan Witz's Thomas Eakins-style portrait of a naked adolescent girl. (Ken Johnson)

From The New Yorker, August 30, 2004

“INNOCENCE FOUND”
A show in which dewy purity, put under close scrutiny, starts to seem a bit rancid. Loretta Lux photographs a little girl in a princess-bride outfit with a faraway expression suggestive of bad things to come; in a suite of drawings by the Clayton brothers, feral-looking children dressed as Power Rangers are admonished to “be nice to animals.” The sweet beasties fare no better: David Humphrey paints kittens who are inexplicably menaced by a loaf of white bread, and Tapp Francke’s image of an earnest bull terrier is mutely tragic.

From M: The New York Art World, September 2004

Innocence Found, DFN Gallery
by Mary Hrbacek

This visually striking group show, loosely organized around the theme of its title, Innocence Found, presents the diverse drawings, paintings and mixed media works of some 33 artists. Each artist displays a clarity and original vision that goes beyond what the show sets out to explore. The term, "innocent" as used here seems to begin by referencing sexual purity, or chastity.

But its definition broadens to include multiple allusions inherent in synonyms like "honest", "natural", "moral", "irreproachable", "guilt-free", "blameless", "virtuous" and "naive". Can innocence ever be rediscovered? Perhaps, if only a memory of some relative innocence. It seems that the key is to distinguish the murky remnance of nostalgia from what was actually lost.

Standouts include Julie Heffernan's large (57 x 68 inches) painting, Self Portrait as Gorgeous Tumor, an ironic piece that is nevertheless honest in its complexity. Heffernan seems to be poking fun at the exhibition's title.

Her imaginative rendering of herself as a pre-pubescent girl arrayed in a bustle of clustered fruits refers to the idea of innocence, by implication, back to the Garden of Eden. Her rich, warm skin tones contrast with the velvety dark background where oval windows glimpse European landscape paintings.

Adela Leibowitz's Incident in the Woods II sets a moody, sensual tone with its sparse pink and blue palette. We see two girls, with demonic expressions, digging in a field, as undulating nearby plants appear to bear witness to some unexplained event.

Kojo Griffin's Untitled, a monotype work, replicates interaction through cartoonish human-animal figures. Similarly, Jenny Scobel suggests the simplified renderings found in 1930s comic book illustrations. Drawn in the limited means of black and white (to mimic pre-color printing presses), we see a girl wearing a shirt with patterns of white, birds in flight, which possibly signal her desire to escape the war zone depicted around her.

Innocence and experience intermingle here on a continuum of peaks and valleys. Depending on the circumstances and the stimulus, one person's
approach to the topic may seem sincere, while another's reeks of sarcasm.
The premise of this show proves largely successful in opening the door to a burst of thoughtful creativity.

From NY Press, Volume 17, Issue 31, August 8, 2004

Lost Innocence Found
by Julia Morton

What is innocence in art—an ironic facade or pure imagination? That question, posed by curators John Nickle and Rick Davidman, became the inspiration for their show "Innocence Found," now at DFN Gallery through Aug. 27.

Depicting families and childhood, oceans and animals, naked youth and God, the artwork presented is uneven, but seen together the focused exhibition works well, allowing us to consider innocence in its various forms from goodness to duplicity to kitsch.

Like good postmodernists, we start our investigation of the art by searching for perverse subtext. We see corporations dominate a toddler's gender identity as she plays beneath a fashion poster; landscapes hint at mayhem; and the photo of a beloved dog becomes a symbol of irrational violence.

Some works are clearly dark and satirical—for example, the autobiographical paintings of Eric White, which consider the effects of divorce on children. On a small circular canvas White has painted a dreamy Hollywood kiss. White asked six-year-old Casey Gallagher to finish the work, so the painting is covered in a frustrated red scribble of the boy's broken family.

Julie Heffernan's Self Portrait as Gorgeous Tumor features an ethereal nude holding a bounty of fruit, which falls away into the mouths of colorful birds. Behind this Renaissance-like scene of beauty, the darkened background bubbles with cancerous visions of monsters and torment.

Mark Ryden's Santa Worm slithers across the frame with happy, adorable elves riding on its back, but should we accept joy so easily, or should we ask if the grinning Santa worm has found his dinner?

The curators chose a variety of styles including Outsider art, fiber art, photography, drawings and paintings. Several artists created new works to specifically express their views on innocence. Though the gallery's layout is typical—brightly lit with white walls and a partition down the middle—the decision to mix styles in thematic clusters creates a narrative flow through the room.

At the end of the first wall we come to Jock Sturges' silver gelatin prints of two lovely nude teenage girls, posing on a beach. By this point we have already passed two other pretty young female nudes. So a new question arises—who draws the line between innocent art and pornography?

Exploiting kitsch, Jana Duda's Good Deer is a photo of a faux faun, a scratched-up plastic garden ornament with Bambi eyes. We know this object is ridiculous, nothing but tacky schlock, yet deep inside a muffled voice coos, "Cute."

Across the room we find the amusing work of several well-known Outsider artists. These pieces produce another question—is innocence a state of mind?

The show finishes with a large, vertically hung painting by Bo Bartlett called Dancer. Dressed in a long white ballet skirt, the dancer, with her proud Manet-like face, stands firmly on a smooth gray rock, shrouded in fog, alone on the stony edge of an unseen precipice: Innocence lost in a hostile world.