That Bright Land

Nathan Lewis presents a world fraught with chaos and disorder. Still, there is hope. Those who have survived the disaster journey on, searching for the promised land.

Friday is the final day of an exhibition of Lewis' masterfully rendered paintings at the Seton Gallery at UNH.

The first painting that one sees when entering the gallery depicts a playing field overrun by uniformed athletes. The sport is an unrecognizable combination of baseball and hurling. Everyone has a bat and/or a ball. No one seems to be playing with each other, but all seem to be on the verge of being seriously injured. The teams are ambiguous and the number-filled scoreboard offers no suggestion of whether team Us or team Them is winning. There are no referees.

In the background, the world has crumbled. The ruins of a modern city are visible beyond the pitch. The field is flanked by a pair of what look like oil derricks. From each end of the painting, a hand emerges from the sky, pointing inward, as though two rival gods are ordering their followers into holy battle.

It's an unnerving painting. Standing in front of it feels a bit like watching footage of a riot, in which the world has gone mad and the base instincts of the species have taken over. Many of the players are faceless and they all seem less than human. They have become lunatics that act without reason.

There are religious themes here. There are political ones as well (oil rigs? The billboards for "Just" and "Ice" add up to "Justice"). But the themes stay loose. Lewis lets his tropes and icons play without resting. And as he carries them through to other works they accumulate meanings and mystery.

The derrick, which looms ominously in this first painting is a recurring symbol in the exhibition. In "Until We Find The Blessed Land Where Our Friends Are Dwelling" it reemerges in the hand of a Washingtonian figure, standing in the prow of a rowboat while the young crew battles against the current, trying to force their crowded craft upstream. Who are these brave young voyagers flying a tattered American flag upside-down? They're not the faceless white male athletes in the previous painting. They look more like a crowd of Obama volunteers: youthful, hip, multi-racial, idealistic twenty-somethings charting a course for a brighter future.

(But why is Ms. Washington holding a tiny oil derrick as though it's the key to their destiny? These aren't Young drill-baby-drill Republicans are they?)

Another recurring character emerges in Lewis' paintings is the twisting birch tree. Birch branches snake curve through several of the works. In "Second Life" a party of young seekers gathers below the branches to consult a map. As in the boat, the map is held by a young woman. The other members of the group, all young men, receive her guidance deferentially (except for one guy, who seems to be listening to his iPod).

In the background, the world is askew. The ground is torn up, the horizon is off kilter, and a signpost in three languages teeters, ignored. The feet hanging above the group provide further evidence that something is very wrong, as though the birch has just been used to lynch someone. As in the river-crossing painting, one imagines that these young people are survivors of a great, possibly apocalyptic, calamity and that they are destined for a better place.

That better place must be the Blessed Isles, alluded to in the title of the riverboat painting and made explicit in a circular painting entitled "The Blessed Isles." The target of their journey is fittingly depicted in a bull's-eye-like circle, at the center of which is a stunning mountain top reflected in a crystalline alpine lake. The bull's eye features rings of text taken from an unknown source but sounding like scripture. The outmost ring is populated by a series of visionary thinkers, poets, philosophers, and musicians including Melville, Nietzsche, Black Sabbath, Blake, Borges, and Kobasa. (The show also includes a portrait of Stephen, set against a tangled, sideways, birch tree forest.) The Blessed Isles are also populated by a pair drumming Fred Astaires and two of the ear-flapped young woman who was sitting near the prow of the riverboat.

The Blessed Isles are a beautiful, holy place, filled with uncorrupted natural beauty and blessed by the presence of sages (like the beatific ram). We can only hope to escape this violent athletic chaos and find ourselves in that bright land.