Seeing Things

by Jim Woodring
Jim Woodring’s charcoal drawings take the otherworldly qualities of his comics (The Frank Book) to a higher level of clarity and nuance. These crisply rendered images reflect his life-long obsession with hidden worlds, alternate realities and the inexplicable resonance of the unprecedented and irrational in lucid art. Seeing Things collects the most toothsome of these drawings and arranges them in four sections. “Lazy Robinson” is a series of portraits of forms taken by a cognizant object during the course of a specific and identifiable stream of thought. “Frogs” celebrates the tender proclivities of the most noble of all animals, by placing them in situations that would dismay a horde of saints. “The Visible World” is a roundup of appalling scenes of sub-rational political activity involving catalytic entities with a high ratio of motivation to altruism. And “The Portfolio in Color” appears like a rainbow at the end of all this exalted storminess to send readers out into the world whistling with delight. Many of these images were created for “Mysterio Sympatico,” Woodring’s multimedia stage collaboration with guitarist Bill Frisell. There is plenty of echoless, glowing furniture to add to that already crowded storeroom which is briefly, but brilliantly, illuminated in the pages of this stately book.