GLOUCESTER — The watermelon is a symbol loaded with cultural content. Frida Kahlo painted watermelons shortly before she died, and wrote “VIVA LA VIDA,” (“LONG LIVE LIFE”) across the red flesh of one. Other watermelon painters include Winslow Homer and Pop artist Wayne Thiebaud. Kara Walker has explored the fruit’s charged, racist symbolism.
Aaron Fink, who works in Boston and Rockport and has exhibited internationally, shows his particular watermelon — seed-studded with a big bite in it — in “Slice” at Jane Deering Gallery. His imagination alights on ordinary objects (a mug, a hat), and he renders them again and again, exploring the transformative possibilities of paint and ink.
This work is a tribute to Jasper Johns, whose COVID-era painting “Slice” depicts a map by Harvard astrophysicist Margaret J. Geller titled “Slice of the Universe.”
Fink paints the universe in his own way, inventively plying his material as if it were stardust and dark matter capable of generating suns and worlds. At 7 feet across and 5 feet high, his “Slice” fills a wall of this small gallery.
And it’s glorious. He brushes paint, scrapes it off, squeegees it, lets it drip, and more in an improvisational dance. He builds up and excavates. Berry red, azure blue, and a yellow that verges on neon green all spark and gleam.
A giant watermelon might be staid and imposing at this size; what Fink really monumentalizes is the state of constant flux between creation and dissolution. The color and materiality of the paint convey a moment of ripeness and satisfaction. There’s even a lounging form written in the meat of the fruit that might be a sperm or a vulva.
Several smaller paintings and prints are on view on the wall and in flat files. Gallery owner Jane Deering told me she sees a strawberry in “Slice #4,” all in shades of red and black. In one painting on non-absorbent polypropylene paper, the watermelon is bubbly and sun-shot, as if on the edge of deliquescence in a cornflower blue sea. Another, wavering and blotted in only black ink, focuses the eye on the giant, welcoming hammock of the form.
Fink’s “Slice” is an avatar of summer at its height — relaxed, sensuous, juicy. Nothing lasts, of course. Enjoy it while you can.
AARON FINK | SLICE
At Jane Deering Gallery, 19 Pleasant St., Gloucester, though July 30. 917-902-4359, www.janedeeringgallery.com
Cate McQuaid can be reached at catemcquaid@gmail.com. Follow her on Instagram @cate.mcquaid.