June 7, 2008

Connie Bostic’s show at the Flood is well-painted and nobly imagined, though it shares with all topical art the peril of looming obsolescence. It is possible that the plight of black people fighting the aftermath of the hurricane in New Orleans will always "read," but it is possible also that it is a little too specific. Some of the images--without an immediate social context understood, at the moment, by all observers-- can look almost comical. Fat ladies pushing swollen suitcases through deep water could be "avarice" as well as "refugee" minus the moment’s common understanding. But in its moment, an important exhibition. Connie is one of those painters who refuses too great a technical refinement, lest it detract from a message which has nothing to do with refinement or belle artes. She paints subjects and not painting, which endears her to me.