Ring the Cookhouse Bell

Smoke is a universal symbol charged with meaning. Without listing all the connotations and feelings associated with it, surely we can all agree that, when seen coming from a chimney, smoke could imply internal warmth, safety, or at the very least, a presence. The same goes for the ring of a bell. When heard around the table with food, it often signals a gathering or a call to community. And this information is very important when talking about how Eliot Greenwald arrived to his new paintings and sculptures that comprise the Ring the Cookhouse Bell exhibition at Villa Navarra in Le Muy, France.

Throughout his artistic career and his life in general, Greenwald has been primarily a maker, a hands-on person who loves experimenting with materials, techniques, and concepts. About six years ago, at the dawn of the global pandemic, the self-taught artist began drawing an image of a boxy car with headlights tearing through the darkness ahead. Soon, these drawings turned into paintings that felt awfully timely in an increasingly distant and unsafe world, becoming his iconic Night Car series. By depicting a car driving through scenes of darkened wilderness, the Portland-born artist used this accessible metaphor for navigating the world's sudden uncertainty. Its surreal, almost psychedelic atmosphere was indicated by the two moons hovering above the scene and intensified by the oversaturated, contrasting colors. Committed to the DIY approach, Greenwald constructed oddly-shaped, custom-built canvases that conveyed the borderlessness of this concept, quickly becoming the artist’s hallmark.

On a painterly scale, this proactive and resourceful outlook also shaped his mark-making and the overall level of rendition. Often resorting to “incorrect” or impromptu methods, techniques, or even color choices, the images got pushed to the point where they’re developed just enough to convey the idea. As such, they quickly reveal their unreality while maintaining a believable sense of place. The scenes were set in an actuality that has one foot firmly planted in tangential imagination, disclosing the spirit of a curious, meandering mind and a process that relies on improvisation. With the headlights’ reach becoming a boundary between the known and the unknown, and Rousseau-esque jungle-like environments appearing and vanishing around them, these visuals evoked the precariousness of day-to-day life. But also, they tapped into a state of being perfectly captured by John Archibald Wheeler, “We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.”

Yet, while the story of Night Car hit the spot globally, its origins were much more humble and personal. Born of the amalgam of coincidences in professional and private life, they captured the aspiration for a freer way of creating and developing his practice. Over the following years, night cars continued to travel around the globe, taking on different shapes and exploring a variety of landscapes. In the meantime, Greenwald moved with his family to Ashfield, Massachusetts, and this shift eventually reflected on his practice. Settled in the countryside, away from life in the city and far from the coast, an image of a house by the water began to appear in his sketches and drawings. The smoke rising from its chimney gave it a sense of life and contemporaneity, and the multiplication created a spirit of community. After “driving all night” for years, continuously discovering what’s in front of him, and leaving what’s behind, a sweeping vista opened up as far as the eye can see, and Greenwald has arrived.

Thinking of the granite and pine islands of his native Maine, as well as its coastal houses built on stilts to avoid tidal changes, the new environments feel equally inviting and familiar, yet somewhat alien and hard to reach. An aura of uncertainty remained intact, but it felt as if the thick, cotton-ball-like smoke had the power to softly tear through it. Partially inspired by Mike Kelley’s Ghost and Spirit photos, the smoke became a prominent, unsuspecting main character, towering over the scenes. The stylized jungle-like landscape is now shown in its full flamboyant beauty, further elevating Greenwald as an exceptional colorist. Set at sunset or sunrise, the two crescent moons were replaced by a single full moon, or perhaps the sun, with the abundant light reflecting on the water and bathing the scenes in an ethereal glow. With the car still occasionally appearing but undergoing a water-based rebirth of sorts, this standout body of work displays the continuously cumulative nature of Greenwald's practice at large.

But while most elements point to arrival, community, and safety, the houses on flimsy stilts carry a far deeper symbolism. Pictorially reminiscent of Matthew Wong's reduction and simplification of imagery, these makeshift structures, which provide safety albeit on a fragile foundation, speak to the precariousness of life and the human condition at large. Alongside their initial coziness, there is a subtle, dystopian, lonely side to them. Situated nearby yet disconnected from each other, they evoke the paradox of global interconnectedness versus terrifying isolation and other trappings of increasing globalization. This probably becomes most obvious in the sculptural pieces, with one of them being a mask or a hideout, and the underwater display heightening this sense of psychic detachment.

Ultimately, the houses and their independent coexistence can be seen as metaphors for theories from philosophy, neuroscience, and mysticism that speak of humans’ inherent isolation within a universal consciousness. The coastal settlements in these paintings visually manifest this, seemingly prioritizing individual well-being while neglecting the potential of a collective. But Greenwald directly challenges this tragipoetic isolation through the exhibition’s title. He is confronting our unfortunate cosmic deficiency by celebrating communal meal-sharing with a defiant, collective call to Ring the Cookhouse Bell! —Saša Bogojev