More Work for the Undertaker
A review of the recent Sam Dargan exhibition
There’s a strange somewhat romantic melancholy to Sam Dargan’s show More Work for the Undertaker at the Wasp Room, a contemporary existential disillusionment that has been prevalent in recent cinema: think Tod Solondz’s Happiness; Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums; Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, and countless others. These filmmakers are conscious of how miserable and pointless contemporary life can be; yet still feel compelled to make beauty out of it. The films’ non-linear and fractured narratives are often propelled along by artful indie rock and are beautifully shot with a very conscious colour palette. The atmosphere of the films often seems to overshadow the bewildering plots.
It is in this sophisticated slow-motion world that I find Dargan’s images to have a certain resonance; he uses intimacy, narrative and colour to create these dramatic set pieces. Disillusioned and solitary figures populate the miniature panels, looking hopeless and lost, as if any attempt to relieve their tedium will only make things worse, as sensed in One Man Mexican Wave and Das Prisenour D-Amour
Looking at the exhibition as a whole, the relationship of the paintings to each other brings Robert Altman’s seminal 1993 film Short Cuts to mind. The film is based on the convergence of nine Raymond Carver short stories and the movie traces the actions of twenty-two principal characters, both in parallel and during occasional loose points of connection. The role of chance and luck is central to the film, and many of the stories concern death, loneliness and infidelity.
Like Short Cuts, Dargan’s exhibition acts as backdrop to the underlying tensions and emptiness of contemporary life but instead of the Los Angeles setting for Short Cuts, we have the quintessential British inner city and suburbia; instead of disaffected pool cleaners and diner waitresses, we have desperate office workers and lonely perverts.
In Short Cuts Altman was aware of the possibilities of his medium, and managed to get the best out of his fine cast, and, together with careful editing, he created sublime moments of cinematic intensity.
Dargan is equally aware of the restrictions of painting and has exploited its potential for close and intimate encounters. Most of the paintings are very small: oil on wood panels. Dargan’s application of paint is both scrupulous and loose at the same time, and there is a confidence in the brush strokes but also an awkwardness and shyness: every part of the painting draws you in. There’s almost something voyeuristic as you practically touch your nose against the surfaces and examine the minute brush marks. His palette has been carefully restricted to dull blues, greys and rusty reds.
As a group they feel like a survey of dissatisfaction, failed utopias and pointless rebellion. Dargan is sensitively aware of how and what painting can communicate, especially as a counterpoint to the ‘off the cuff’ utterances we make on twitter or facebook. Painting can be more direct than film in its capacity for story telling: in the closeness of a small gallery there is the opportunity for a direct communion between artist and viewer. Dargan is aware of this responsibility and has woven a together a collection of very human tales.
