Slavery.
It’s a charged word we don’t encounter too often, a word that, when you hear it or see it, almost forces a confrontation with our country’s dark history, persisting racial inequality and the bondage that still exists around the world. It’s a word that might make you ask questions, make you think, make you uneasy, which is how you could describe the work of Durango artist Mike Brieger, whose drawings, paintings and sculptures often deal with slavery.
Brieger will display all-new “peculiar” work at his show “Slavery Days,” which opens at the Durango Arts Center with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday.
Brieger admits that returning to slavery as subject matter in his art again and again is “a little odd.” However, it’s a theme that has surfaced for him throughout his life.
“I was looking back at my drawings from when I was in second grade, and there’s crayon drawings of Abe Lincoln and a bunch of slaves,” Brieger said.
Unlike some artists who are very intentional about the direction their work takes at the start, Brieger lets his art materialize as he goes, eschewing intent and preconceived outcomes.
“When you paint like that, you don’t know what’s going to happen; you don’t know what has happened when it’s done,” he said. “Believe me, I’ve tried (planning)... and one or two strokes in it’s like, (forget) that.”
Brieger’s captivation with slavery is hard to explain, he said. He’ll read about the topic here and there, and when playing guitar will find himself playing “old timey blues in minor keys.” The subject is almost deep-seated, emerging again and again almost beyond his control.
“It’s a theme that just comes from another place,” said Brieger. “I don’t know about reincarnation or not, but I feel as though, very likely that I had something going on in one way or another that way that’s making that happen. I don’t choose so much.”
Brieger’s show is his first in more than a decade, having taken a break from his art to focus on being a parent.
“I really quit making art for more or less 14 years when my son was born,” said Brieger, who has worked at the detox center at Mercy Regional Medical Center for the past three years while maintaining his blacksmithing and ornamental-iron work. “I didn’t want to come out being a zombie, painting for 10, 15 hours a day. I wanted to be a dad.”
The all-new work that Brieger created for “Slavery Days” was a year in the making after DAC’s Exhibits Director Mary Puller contacted him after seeing some of his metal work and paintings. Brieger said he didn’t have to “jump through any hoops” typically required for an art show, which enticed him.
However, something odd happened during Brieger’s hiatus. When he began painting and drawing again, he’d somehow improved.
“I picked up where I left off,” he said. “I get better at painting without painting.”
“Slavery Days” shows through Nov. 21.
dholub@durangoherald.com. David Holub is the Arts & Entertainment editor for The Durango Herald.
If you go
“Slavery Days,” peculiar institutional sculpture, paintings and other media by Mike Brieger, opens at the Durango Arts Center with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday and runs through Nov. 21.
