A curious aspect of the recent sculptures by 33 year old Gregory LaChapelle is their immediate adjustment to all tastes. The small cameo-like reliefs portray mysterious red cliffs harboring within their depths precisely modeled miniature cliff-dwellings of Pueblo Indians of the American Southwest. At first they seem uncompromisingly traditional but before long a kinship to the emphatic realism of “pop” art conditions the former impression and arouses doubt as to the artist’s intent. His explanation: a simple concern with archaeology which he attempts to maintain on a light, amateur level of interest not devoid of humor. Lachapelle meticulously defines each brick in his reconstructed cliff-cities and although the only real variety results from the studied division of polished cliffs from the invariable lead-blue sky, it is enough to restore one’s interest. Occasionally, the oval and circle compositions appear as table-top pieces in which the artist makes a cement cast from an aggregate of diverse materials including animal teeth and bones, shells and other sea debris, metallic junk, and many unidentifiable items which masquerade as frightening Bosch-like things best left undisturbed. The wet, oily finish in deep black-brown colors suggests a putrescence fortunately beyond human experience. There are other works to demonstrate LaChapelle’s range of imagination but the cliff-dwellers steal the show.
—Curt Opliger
