Page 179 - Genius

raFat

intricate pat terns that yield such details as
small colorful birds nesting in her hair with
prolonged study. Mey takes pleasure in the
complexity of the world, which he exaggerates
and distorts with a Picasso-esque fervor that
appears to appropriate and parody styles from
various periods of art history.
"The Woman with Several Faces," for example,
is a complex image in which the figure's
features emerge from overlapping heart-
shaped forms that suggest anthropomorphic
valentine boxes. Her multiple heads, as well
as her torso, are created with vibrantly colored
lines and dense patterns layered in a rhythmic
manner that imparts to the composition a
writhing sense of energy'. Mey could eliminate
the subject matter altogether and still has an
engrossing abstract composition. The imagistic
element, however, is an important part of his
art, adding to it a zany neo-surrealism akin
to that of the American painters, based in
Chicago, who call themselves "The Hairy Who
School."
like those artists, Mey often enhances his
imagery with a byzantine intricacy that one
could almost compare to the obsessive
doodles in the work of certain so-called
"Outsider" artists, such as Martin ramirez and
Adolf Wolfi. For a sophisticated artist to take
inspiration from the unschooled is, of course,
nothing new. Max Ernst, Paul klee and other
nineteenth century modernists learned a great
deal from naive painters and Jean Dubuffet
sang the praises of "art brut" as an antidote
to the avant-garde academy in his famous text
"Asphyxiating Culture."
rafat Mey, however, appears to apply the
inspiration of outsider art more profitably
than most, partaking of its freedom without
succumbing to its tunnel-vision. Indeed,
he seems to have the ability to generate
interesting images at will, as easily as
other artists breathe, freely associating to
create highly original visual puns through
the juxtapositioning of incongruous figures
and objects. At die same time, his precise
technique and austere line counterbalances
his freewheeling imagination, subjecting his
images to formal constraints that keep his
compositions from spinning out of control
through sheer exuberance. (excerpts)
"Discovering rafat Mey, a german Artist
Whose Work reconciles Distant Poles" by
Adele Palmier Irvine
 BirtH oF VenUs, 1999 MIxED MEDIA 40x27 IN. / 100x70 CM.
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