JW Caldwell’s Game

JW Caldwell

By Kristen Peterson (contact)

Friday, Aug. 27, 2010 | 12:05 a.m.

JW Caldwell

When not installing blue-chip art in prestigious homes and institutions, JW Caldwell, an avid hunter (and exquisite bowler), sometimes joins the company of his fellow sportsmen, the type of guys who eschew art and all its mind-bending theory. Together they hunt, fish and gut wild game, a primitive romp in the great outdoors, far from pristine, white-walled spaces that Caldwell traverses.

The dichotomy of fine art and rugged outdoorsmanship makes Caldwell's own work refreshingly unique — deer heads, cowboys, skulls, targets and wild game are rendered in paint and sometimes gunpowder and elk blood. Such is the style of 18 new works in "Talking Loud, Saying Nothing," the one-night-only exhibit on August 28 at the former offices of Michele C. Quinn Fine Art Advisory. Wildlife, prehistoric creatures and even farm animals, portrayed in the artist's usual "paint by numbers" style emphasizing color separation and simple form, are augmented by hand-rendered text, including song lyrics Caldwell imagines the creatures might express.

The spewed phrases, projected in rays from the animals' mouths, add conviction. The grizzly roars "Sweet nothing" and the lone wolf's "More more more" is sung into the night sky. There's also the elk saying, "Don't hate the game," and the rooster ordering, "Wake the (expletive) up." Several works on paper, including a Tyrannosaurus Rex rendering ("Punx not dead"), incorporate gunpowder.

The show's Wild West/pop/hunters' art feel makes the well-crafted work a comfortable gallery fit that would also hang nicely above a sofa, upholstered in wildlife imagery

— Originally published in Las Vegas Weekly