Bob DeVine's work grows out of Buddhism and the I Ching

The art of Bob DeVine is informed by the New Testament, the I Ching and, more recently, the tragedy of Sept. 11. Don't let that stop you from enjoying it.

DeVine, a Eugene artist of serious reputation, manages to cram a lot into a 30-by-40-inch drawing or painting, as you can see in "Ends and Beginnings," a show of his work through most of the summer at the DIVA gallery. The show is made up of three separate but related groups of work. The first, which DeVine calls "the Well," is a half-dozen large charcoal drawings inspired by the symbol of the well in the I Ching. You may have seen DeVine's paintings, based on these charcoal sketches, in the Eugene Public Library. He was one of several artists commissioned in conjunction with the new library's construction. DeVine sees the well as a symbol for the library. If this sounds possibly labored, the result is smooth and fascinating.

As in the paintings, DeVine constructs these charcoal drawings calligraphically, with line predominating over form. His drawing is supple and smooth, containing a lot of substance without appearing busy. You don't notice right at first, for example, that each of the drawings is built on the same foundation, the cross section of an open well. Within this framework, DeVine inserts, in one drawing, a donkey, a favorite image of his; into another, two ghostly fish; into a third, three women at the well.

DeVine has thoughtfully provided a written guide that explains, in some detail, the inspiration for each drawing in a hexagram of the I Ching. Read it if you wish, or simply enjoy the haunting images he has created. The other two sets of work in the show are what DeVine calls the ``Bardos.'' (Bardo is a term from Tibetan Buddhism that describes the limbolike existence between life and the next reincarnation.)

DeVine's bardos are those terrible moments on Sept. 11, 2001, when thousands of souls hovered between life and death. A former New Yorker, he was wracked by the attack on the World Trade Center and has spent much time since then absorbing the event into his art. His first ``Bardos,'' some of which he has shown in a small exhibit at Tsunami Books, are subdued color and monochrome drawings inspired by the attacks; the second ``Bardos'' are bright acrylic paintings. He calls his subject here the "in-between time" of that morning, the final seconds before the planes struck their targets.

Nothing in DeVine's work is overstated. You could look at these images for some time before grasping that the vertical shapes in each drawing or painting come from the Twin Towers. Overlaying their stark geometry are a wide range of visual references, from Pablo Picasso's ``Guernica'' to Cimabue, a 13th century Florentine artist. DeVine weaves in his favorite imagery from his wells series, including the donkey and the ladder, keeping us, to some degree, on familiar ground as he explores this unknown territory.

The artist is clearly still working to grasp his material as he plumbs the meaning of Sept. 11. DeVine's "Bardos'' are rougher than his wells series, which are extremely articulate works. He has had less time to assimilate the Twin Towers - none of us quite knows what that day fully means yet - but in these paintings and drawings, DeVine has sketched out a moral field guide to the tragedy.

July 11, 2004