reviews > Indianapolis, IN

Beatrice Anne Garritano
Beatrice Anne Garritano

The art of children was held dear by the Surrealists, who saw in it, as they saw in the art of women, the insane and others who existed on the fringes of society, raw and untrammeled expression of the kind they were constantly gaming themselves into creating. The art of children has also long been appreciated by another group of adults, the parents of those same children, who historically have seen brilliance in every mark made by little Jane and Johnny. Rarely have those two groups converged, as they do here, in Adam Siurek’s submission of his two-year-old daughter Beatrice’s untitled triptych from 2018. Siurek is no Surrealist—you can’t really be one anymore, the membership list closed forever when Breton died—but as a contemporary professional artist, he’ll do. And so: Beatrice’s trio of petite paintings evince forceful brushwork of an unusually monochromatic variety, all white with flecks of green or red blended in, as if she were double-dipping in the paint jar. Her fierce strokes have an all-over direction, as toddlers themselves are wont to do, everything in the world being of potential interest to someone for whom it is still new. That, too, is one of the many reasons we become parents: to find the world interesting all over again.

—Lori Waxman 2019-04-30 11:57 AM