Sara & Shane Scribner

By Jamie Hildabrand

Selecting pieces of art to discuss at Scribner’s Gallery & Studio is a gratifying task sobered only by the fact that despite this magazine’s name, paintings depicting any kind of nudity will be censored. This doesn’t come as an immense surprise to the artists, Shane and Sara Scribner, since censorship of their nude paintings was once self-imposed.
“I was afraid to show them when we first opened,” Sara said. “For a long time we kept them in the back.”

Public interest in their work has since debunked their hesitance to display all of their work in the front part of the gallery.

“People started asking to see them,” Sara said. “After a while we felt safer about it.”

Censorship of their work is “a non-issue now,” Shane explained. “People are very accepting of figurative art.”

“Why should it be dirty or wrong?” he asked. “It is beautiful expression.”

Shane and Sara’s goal as artists is to preserve the merit of figurative art in a world dominated by abstract art.

“We have a built-in library of reading each other,” Shane said. “We’re trained to look at people to see if they’re upset, happy…”

Therein lies the reason to “tell the story through the figure, without having a bunch of props.”

Abstract art often needs “an essay to explain what it means,” the artists both elaborated.

“Art has its own language,” Sara said. “You should be able to show a tribesman in Papua New Guinea a piece of art, and they should be able to know what it means.”

“No matter where in the planet you’re from, you understand these principles,” Shane said. “Everyone knows what it looks like to be mad, or happy…”

Shane’s aim is met and manifested in his method of emoting: nudes. After all, what is more recognizable and elemental than the human form?

Working within the confines of what kinds of images we are able to feature proved to be difficult considering nudity is a strong motif in Shane’s art. The nudity in his work isn’t implemented for the sake of being sensational. Shane finds it, instead, to be essential in expressing the basic human condition.

“I just think there’s a purity that happens… a truth that it conveys,” Shane said. “It takes it back to the core emotion.”

This is certainly true of “Ophelia,” a modern take of John Everett Millais’ painting by the same name. It features the tragic character from Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet, drowning in a brook "incapable of her own distress.”

Shane is drawn by “pieces that have a lot of reflectivity,” he said. “It shows the conscious and unconscious.”

He shot the framework in a frog pond with gold fish swimming around, he said. “She’s laying beautiful amongst the flowers and her dress,” which has been gently tugged by the water.

“Clothes can kind of lead you in different directions,” Shane said. “It can take away from the pure message.”

He has stated that figurative work is “a subject that we can depict without gilding the lily, without unnecessary decoration and distraction.”

Sara’s work, however, demonstrates similar universally identifiable emotions and images by indulging in the outlandish and fantastical.

“I really want to add something whimsical to portraits,” she said. “Something more playful and fun.”

She accomplishes this feat by painting portraits with something “unusual” happening in the background, as is evident in a portrait of a girl with a frog on her shoulder. The use of the frog is peculiar, but not arbitrary.

“Frogs area symbol of safe passage in Japan,” Sara said.

Symbolism remains a theme throughout Sara’s work. “Birdsong Interrupted,” a part of her ‘Double’ series, depicts the same person manifested twice. The idea behind this painting is that “we’re our worst enemies,” she said. “In a lot of ways, we self-sabotage.”

On the right side of the image, the girl is “completely oblivious” and looking away. The robin, which represents creativity, flutters away due to her negligence. On the left side of the piece, the same girl is portrayed more mischievously, and the bird is dead in her hands. The motion of events moves from one side of the painting to the other, showing this girl working against herself unknowingly. This surreal rendering of fleeting creativity utilizes whimsy as décor, in juxtaposition to Shane’s more basic portrayal of raw emotion.

This difference in approach peaked their interest for their next project: a collaboration. Shane and Sara are working together with a writer on a series of emotions and states of being that they both will interpret and display alongside a written prose in a showing entitled “As Seen by Three.” This presentation will feature Loss, Whimsy, Fear, Anger, Lust, Joy, Hope, and Love.

When comparing Shane and Sara’s interpretations of Loss and Whimsy, it becomes evident that their paintings are as disparate in presentation as the emotions themselves.

Shane’s “Loss” shows a woman curled into the fetal position, seemingly covered in white paint.

“A picture of a snowstorm kept popping in my head,” he said of conceiving the piece. “The white gives it that blown out kind of feeling.”

Sara noted that the subject herself is lost within the picture. “Her skin bleeds into the paint, and the white paint bleeds into the white background,” she said.

“It ‘s more minimalist than I normally paint,” Shane elaborated.

Sara’s take on “Loss” portraits a woman grasping at her clothes “anticipating something coming, like drastic change,” Sara explained.

Shane described loss as “such a black and white emotion.” Placing the subject in a colorless environment underlines that the mood is “so bleak.”

“I gave her bright highlights in her eyes to make them look watery,” Sara said.

The woman’s festively floral dress is a notable choice for the artist.

“Loss comes so quickly,” Sara said. “She’s dressed to go somewhere, and something happens… It helps the anticipation factor.”

For his interpretation of whimsy, Shane creates a quirky gathering entitled “The Tea Party.”

“Whimsy, for me, is kind of play—goofiness,” he said. “I thought it’d be cool to have these pop culture icon pin-up girls… clown, Goth, nerd girl.”

This painting doesn’t capture a singular moment or state of being, however. It is not typical of his other work because of its inherent whimsy.

“They [the subjects] are interacting with the viewer, and inviting you to play; as opposed to interacting with each other,” Shane said.

Sara explores the same emotion through fantasy.

“For me, when I think of whimsy, I think of something unreal and magical,” she said. “I asked myself, ‘what’s playful?’, and that’s when I thought of birds. “

In the painting a girl is seen blissfully floating mid-air, playing with a bird, amongst the bubbles flying around her.

“I want it to feel like an ultra playful, child-like moment… like fantasy,” Sara said. “So unreal, making that emotion feel so intense.”

Sara explained that images like this capture a person’s imagination because “humans really like fairytales, the unreal and unnatural.”

Although Sara and Shane are steadfast to their respective approaches to art, the “As Seen by Three” project forced a departure from their usual methods.

“These paintings pushed us out of our comfort zones,” Shane said. “They have spurred on these fresh projects and new ways to look out there and do it.”

The showing for these pieces is tentatively slated for March 2011 at Scribner’s Gallery & Studio in downtown Enid. Eight emotions, three perspectives, one night.

Check out more paintings at www.scribnersgallery.com