Alisha Kerlin

At the "Greater New York" show at PS 1, I became devoted to Alisha Kerlin's two paintings of solitaire games ("Solitaire" and "Solitaire (How To Find Lost Objects)").  One has a yellow background, one is backed by mauve.  Each shows a game of solitaire -- the cards laid out in rows, with the high card on top, and each card one number lower (but in solitaire, of course, the suits need not be consistent -- beneath a six of clubs may be a five of diamonds).

The subject matter of painting has become essential -- perhaps we have been conditioned by photography, which has a documentary element.  And the game of solitaire suddenly seems the only fit subject for painting.  One reason: no one plays real solitaire anymore!  Everyone plays the computer version!  In the same way, no one paints paintings anymore.  Slowly applying paint to a canvas, with an archaic brush, is much like the game of patience (as solitaire is called, in England).

The cards are depicted in a rather straightforward manner -- similar to Wayne Thiebaud's rows of pastries -- yet the perspective is awkward and shifting.  Strangely there are no piles of discards, nor of unused cards, although the games don't seem finished.  (I have a sense, from playing solitaire, of how many cards are in a "finished" game.)  The unfinished nature of these solitaire displays seems meaningful, as if these are images of "unfinishedness" itself.

Each card Alisha depicts has a paint-aura (I mean an aura made of paint).  In other words, the more you stare at these canvases, the more you see hidden shapes in the background -- in what initially appears a uniform field of yellow.  All great painting, after five minutes of staring, becomes an abstraction.  (Lousy painting, after five minutes, is used up.)