Art Beat: Get on the 'Wavelength' at reopened Colo Colo Gallery

After a lengthy hiatus brought about by a reconfiguration of the layout of viable exhibition space at the Kilburn Mills in New Bedford’s South End, and to an even greater degree, the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, Luis Villanueva has reopened the Colo Colo Gallery.

Now located on the third floor of the sprawling mill that houses several other galleries, bookstores, artist studios, a yoga studio, a restaurant and much more, the Colo Colo Gallery, in its latest incarnation is a long and somewhat narrow space with deep charcoal gray walls and a single large window overlooking Clark’s Cove.

The first guest artist to exhibit in the new space is Joe Loria, a California-based painter who graduated in 1979 from the Swain School of Design in New Bedford and received his MFA in 1981 from the Parsons School of Design in New York.

Loria had previously shown work in Villanueva’s gallery when it was on the first floor of the same mill in 2017. That exhibition was a series of brightly-hued charcoal drawings that included a floral still life and an image of a cat that seemed to take inspiration from the cartoonist B. Kliban before Loria infused it with a cubist sensibility.

But the theme of the bulk of the work from that show is the California beach, with sunbathers basking on blankets and beach chairs, fishermen angling in the water, couples making out or arguing, and the requisite burly beach bums and beautiful bikini-clad blondes.

His return engagement is much of that same motif and it is a joyful celebration of the seaside and its devotees. Exhibiting a clever bit of wordplay with reference to the beach, Loria has called the exhibition “Wavelength,” or perhaps that means that he still attuned to the same frequency. Either way it works.

One wall of the gallery features works that lean toward the abstract, while retaining a semblance of a recognizable reality. For example, Loria spells nothing out in his small painting “Tahoe Pines Attitude Becomes Form,” (which sounds like the title of a Richard Brautigan short story.)

A cottony cloud hovers in a sky of blue over a jagged pink line (maybe distance mountains) behind a series of black arcing shapes (maybe the pines) set back behind a deep blue horizontal band atop a row of darker short strokes (maybe a pier) which is behind an arrangement of the-same-blue-again diagonal dashes (maybe waves. )

Many of the paintings are seductive in use of bold color and unexpected compositions, as in “The Camera is God and Two People Will Do” (in which three people are depicted). A barebacked blonde in the skimpiest of shorts and a muscular dude in a white tank top have their backs to the viewer. Their arms are crossed in front of them.

And then there is the woman slumped in a sagging beach chair. She is wearing a bright red bikini top containing a breast that is shaped like the tip of a torpedo. And her head is not even there at all, cut off by the edge of the canvas itself, like a bad photo cropping. But somehow it works, as it sets an intriguing and uncomfortable visual tension.

At first glance, “Lend a Hand” seems innocent enough. A couple lie on the beach. The man has an arm draped around the shoulders the woman. Her elbow is cocked upward, her hand  reaching downward and suddenly one realizes how naughty the title is.

In “Surfing with Lou Reed,” there is no sign of the frontman of the legendary Velvet Underground but there are crashing waves and threatening clouds and a guy on the sand with a bright orange surfboard, assessing the situation.

Several paintings in the show, particularly “Z Girls” and “Pig on a Beach,” feature Picasso-esque women doing Picasso-esque things and displaying their Picasso-esque assets. Loria is a smart painter deeply grounded in art history who understands the power and the dilemma of the male gaze, with all its trappings and pitfalls and inevitability. And with a wink and a nod, he acknowledges it.

You might be on his wavelength.

“Joe Loria: Wavelength” is on display at the Colo Colo Gallery, at the Kilburn Mills, 3rd floor, 127 West Rodney French Blvd., New Bedford, until March 31.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Art Beat visits Joe Loria's "Wavelength" at Colo Colo Gallery