Most of Pierson's work consists of smallish monochromes created with an oilstick on paper. "What You Take With You and What You Leave Behind" (1994) depicts a wooden folding chair with a short-sleeved, silk-print shirt dangling from its back, a coffee...
[more]Most of Pierson's work consists of smallish monochromes created with an oilstick on paper. "What You Take With You and What You Leave Behind" (1994) depicts a wooden folding chair with a short-sleeved, silk-print shirt dangling from its back, a coffee cup, and cigarette butts scattered around the floor. Highly cinematic, the odd assemblage practically begs viewers to construct their own stories around it. (Pierson afficionados will recognize the silk-print shirt from an earlier work, "Poster Star Alexis Arquette" [1990].)
At first glance, such titles as "Taxi Blues," "I brought it all on myself," "Ain't nothin' happening," and "Thinkin' bout my mother" teeter dangerously close to cliches. But because Pierson augments and distorts them with so much dedication and affection, their seemingly hackneyed reference points are reinvigorated. In each piece, Pierson alters the pacing, scale, and density, and varies the purity or dilution of the paint. Vincent Katz notes that in repeated stabs with a coloring stick, Pierson sometimes achieves a sort of hypnotic effect reminiscent of Islamic art. Katz writes, "In 'Blues in a paper cup,' dark black-blues battle with cerulean in vertical dabs or shafts; the bottom portion of the field is more tortured and fragmented...While [many] of the works resemble refracting water surfaces, 'Harlem Nocturne' suggests an ocean of people, going home, perhaps, or going to mass."
Pierson's photography often consists of sensual, sad, and seductive images, sometimes dreamily overexposed, which speak to evocative emotions like loss, longing, and love. He was one of the first photographers to print pages with images bleeding out of their traditional white frames.
Finally, Pierson's other work falls under the rubric of what he calls "lettering" -- words or statements are formed from the silver letters of the defunct neon or burnished aluminum of public signs and later affixed to a wall. With titles including "Still," "Like Someone Alone," "Anyone,"
"God," and "Believe," these pieces illustrate a 1950s crooner sensibility.
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