The Story Thus Far

Once, on a hot day in August, I met a painter at Secco so we could talk about life and drink pink wine together.

The wine was Domaine de Fenouillet  Cotes du Ventoux Rose, a pale pink fruity gem with a nice mineral finish, and the painter was Josh George, a NYC transplant with a soft voice and an understated charm.

A retelling of that conversation appeared in "Style Weekly," here, this week, so when I went to Ghostprint Gallery for Josh's opening tonight, there it was laid out on the counter for all to see.

As a non-artist, I've never gotten so much attention at an art opening before and all I did was write about the talent.

And the fact is, I'd have been there to see "The Story Thus Far" whether I'd written the piece or not.

I rarely miss a Ghostprint preview; it's the only sane way to see a show given the crowds on art walk nights (at least back in the days before roving teenagers became an issue).

I'd seen Josh's last show and had been impressed enough to want to see his new work. I was a sure thing tonight.

Tonight's preview was very crowded, perhaps because others also prefer Thursdays and maybe because Josh is extremely talented and the local cognoscenti have picked up on that.

Many of the pieces were large scale works and all were a combination of paint, collage and layers of varnish, giving a depth of detail and intricacy that required slow and mindful viewing so as not to miss anything.

Walking in, I went over to the first painting where a guy was staring intently at the scene of a band performing.

When he saw me, he turned and said with awe, "That's Iron Maiden, you know!"

I hadn't known that, but I had known that Josh is a death metal fan, so I wasn't as surprised as this guy was.

His friend smiled at me as if to say, "Thanks for tolerating his enthusiasm," but I understood.

The rest of the show is full of domestic scenes and city scenes, some showing buildings much taller than anything in Richmond.

As I had discovered during my Secco interlude, Josh is a wine lover (the first thing he'd told me after saying hello tonight was to get a glass of the Italian sparkler because it was good) and wine made its presence known in more than a few paintings.

In "Carrot Chopper," a bottle of Vouvray sits on the women's cutting board, perhaps her reward once her chopping was finished.

Josh's dry wit came through in "Posso Avere il Conto Per Favore?" where a bottle of wine on the waiter's tray is labeled with "Masterpiece Musee Picasso."

A similar reinterpretation is seen in "Man's Best Soup" where one of the cans on the shelf behind the soup-eater has a label saying "Mastercard accepted in more than 6500 shops and restaurants in Belgium."

If the viewer didn't look closely at the wine glass or the can, though, they'd miss the subtle humor of both.

"Formidable Opponent" showed a woman taking down two men, one of whom she was holding by the feet upside down.

Formidable indeed.

During the reception, a woman I know came up and conspiratorially asked me about my blog.

"I can't tell from reading it if you have a man, or you're looking for a man or if you're not. Tell me, what's really going on?"

As I opened my mouth to answer her, a guy appeared behind her and asked me, "Didn't we meet before?"

It wasn't a line; we had met a Balliceaux a while back when he was considering moving from Brooklyn to RVA.

Last week he moved here, just in time for Hurricane Irene.

I got so busy talking to him about Sazeracs, antelope and Napoleon cabs that I never got a chance to get back to that other conversation.

Really, what is going on?