Contemporary Focus (2011)
Exhibition with Brian Jobe and Greg Pond
Knoxville Museum of Art
(Knoxville, TN) 2011
John Bissonette's work used a corner of the room as a kind of architectural foil. But rather than looking like a habitable site, it looked more abandoned with various bits of detritus and unfinished painting notions halted mid-sentence on the wall. Mid-sentence is apt as the language that Bissonette is working with as a mixed vernacular that combines the ephemeral with more academic means of delivery. How else would you describe car lot sale flags juxtaposed with random bits of dimensional lumber alongside garishly formal paintings in a traditional manner? Unlike John Berryman's linguistic mash-up in his poetic dream songs, Bissonette's stew inhabits a geography of nowhere style that is more akin to Beck's more sparse laments of suburban ennui driven art interventions. As such it begs an interaction from behind the window of a second hand Japanese car and leaves us with a vaguely disquieted feeling.
- Herb Reith, Numbers Magazine No. 70 (Winter 2012)
