Every Emotion
A grief-stricken face, a couple embracing, a mother on her deathbed, a body collapsed in relaxation — late Cleveland artist John W. Carlson’s paintings, mixed-media pieces and drawings display visceral, relatable emotions using variations in figure, expressive lines, color, layer and scale.
“Emotion is a common thread running through the human condition,” Carlson wrote. “My work is every emotion.”
See more than 75 paintings, drawings and objects in “John W. Carlson: Set the Twilight Reeling” from Sept. 16 to Nov. 12 at the Massillon Museum. A portion of the exhibit re-creates his former studio in the ArtCraft building in Cleveland so visitors can see how he used his sketches and journals to create his final works. He collaborated with visual artists, writers and musicians, and visitors can view artworks that are products of those collaborations.
He spoke with his friend and Jamaican-born photographer, Radcliffe “Ruddy” Roye, about music and race for his “Blues” series. For example, the oil-and-charcoal work “On a Sea of Forgotten Teardrops” features a Black family holding up a baby to a full moon on a raft, which is made out of driftwood Carlson sourced from Mississippi.
“The blues here is the space to escape their wretchedness, and it is where John hopes to catapult his viewers, for them to also feel the plight,” Roye wrote.
Carlson’s frequent collaborator was his partner, Shari Wilkins, who is the founder and strategic director of the Cleveland Print Room dedicated to film photography. The two co-created the American Emotionalism manifesto, which states art should be profound, passionate and elicit deep feelings on its own rather than be accompanied by extensive wall text instructing viewers how to feel. Carlson did this by recording emotion anywhere he went, like a sad boy on a New York City subway he drew and later painted.
“He was always mining the world for inspiration,” says Alexandra Nicholis Coon, executive director of Massillon Museum.
The ultimate expression of grief comes with Carlson’s 7.6-by-7-foot “Nebraska” that stretches over multiple canvases and features oil sticks, newsprint, sticks and prairie grass from the Nebraska house where his son, Ryan, died and Wilkins’ photo of the house. There was a brilliant sunset, which provides a spec of light in the painting that’s a wash of black, blue and pink and showcases a lone blade of prairie grass surviving through a cement crack.
“He thought that was some kind of omen,” Wilkins says of the sunset. “He did feel that there was some closure.”
As Carlson intended with the manifesto, Nicholis Coon says you will feel something when you see “Twilight Reeling.”
“He was able to connect deeply with people and put himself in every painting,” she says. “The legacy he leaves is being able to translate human emotion on a surface in a way that is so powerful.” 121 Lincoln Way E, Massillon, massillonmuseum.org
Artworks above: “Nebraska,” "His Girl," "Dark was the Night," "In the Afternoon" and "On a Sea of Forgotten Teardrops"
Inset: "Drawing #49"