Lincoln Perry is justly celebrated for his murals and edgy
narrative figure paintings, with their saturated palette and
multifaceted architectural compositions--Poussin refracted through
de Chirico. This beautiful new book showcases his images of
Charlottesville, Virginia--many of them multipanel compositions
featuring the University of Virginia and its environs--accompanied
by an essay and interview by his wife, the writer Ann Beattie.
Perry's mural The Student's Progress, which depicts a woman's
education and social experience from matriculation through
graduation, is familiar to U.Va. students, faculty, and visitors,
but Perry has been painting Charlottesville subjects on and off
since 1985, when he first moved to town. From his early
explorations of the complex relationships between professors and
students, played out against the backdrop of Jefferson's Lawn,
through his intriguing depictions of the city's domestic interiors,
buildings, and streets, Perry illuminates a different side of a
place widely appreciated for its history and natural beauty.
Charlottesville, writes Beattie, "both disturbs and calls to
Perry] it's a paradoxically comfortable and uncomfortable
not-quite-home he has been drawn to many times for reasons he can't
easily articulate.... I think that Lincoln likes the town's
quirkiness and its lack of uniformity. It's also a place that
allows him to practice the x-ray vision so many visual people have
for underpinnings: the contradictions that can be drawn upon and
aesthetically dramatized.... The place sparks his imagination, and
with his paintbrush, he sparks it, charging the air with a bit of
unexpected--but very recognizable--light."
Together, Perry and Beattie give us a view of Charlottesville,
of place and artistic production, that carries with it the warmth
of recognition and the thrill of discovery.
Publication made possible by generous support from the W. L.
Lyons Brown Jr. Charitable Foundation
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