Lincoln Perry is justly celebrated for his murals and edgy narrative figure paintings, with their saturated palette and multifaceted architectural compositions - Poussin refracted through de Chirico. This beautiful new book showcases his images of Charlottesville, Virginia - many of them multipanel compositions featuring the University of Virginia and its environs - accompanied by an essay and interview by his wife, the writer Ann Beattie. Perry’s mural
The Student’s Progress , which depicts a woman’s education and social experience from matriculation through graduation, is familiar to University of Virginia students, faculty, and visitors, but Perry has been painting Charlottesville subjects on and off since 1985, when he first moved to town. From his early explorations of the complex relationships between professors and students, played out against the backdrop of Jefferson’s Lawn, through his intriguing depictions of the city’s domestic interiors, buildings, and streets, Perry illuminates a different side of a place widely appreciated for its history and natural beauty.
Charlottesville , writes Beattie,
both disturbs and calls to [Perry]: it’s a paradoxically comfortable and uncomfortable not-quite-home he has been drawn to many times for reasons he can’t easily articulate…I think that Lincoln likes the town’s quirkiness and its lack of uniformity. It’s also a place that allows him to practice the x-ray vision so many visual people have for underpinnings: the contradictions that can be drawn upon and aesthetically dramatized…The place sparks his imagination, and with his paintbrush, he sparks it, charging the air with a bit of unexpected - but very recognizable - light.
Together, Perry and Beattie give us a view of Charlottesville, of place and artistic production that carries with it the warmth of recognition and the thrill of discovery.