A Walter Mitty Probes Life’s Absurdities

By JANET TYSON

FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM

FORT WORTH - If nothing else, the business of visual art is to express ideas and feelings in ways that are apprehended by the eye.

            And Ed Haddaway's abstract painted steel sculptures - astringently linear and lively of hue - achieve a fine congruence of content and form.

There is wit and whimsy in their doodled appearance and in their gentle prodding of middle-class virtues.

            Like a daydreaming Walter Mitty, Haddaway doesn't utterly reject bourgeois domesticity. He uses it as a springboard for escapist or enriching fantasies.

            Even the artist's strongest statement in this show at Fort Worth Gallery - House of Sticks, House of Stones, a vertical work that features a rusted flamelike element with a door cut into its base -- Would not propel viewers into major re-examinations of their lives. But it offers an alternative perspective.

            The exhibition is announced by a large outdoor piece that contrasts with the more muted, naturalistic sculptures normally installed around that space.

            Fifteen more Haddaway sculptures cavort about the gallery's interior as though it was a circus complete with acrobats, clowns and dancing bears.

            There also are six monoprints that cast the graphic quality of Haddaway's sculpture into 2-D terms, using quieter hues.

            The 3-D works are made from chunky geometric shapes and irregular lines - some zigzagging, some unfolding or climbing, others unfurling in quirky arabesques - cut from varying thicknesses of metal sheets.

            The separate elements are stacked, connected and otherwise brought into a cockeyed, Flying Wallendas-like communion, then welded to achieve the appearance of improbable balance.

            Within each sculpture, the individual pieces of metal are painted their own solid colors-bright red or deep purple or turquoise or black, among them - for a jumble that only furthers the sense of random proximity that also is echoed in titles such as Chop Suey and Pocketful of the Absurd.

            Occasionally, as in House of Sticks, House of Stones, an element has a rich, rusty finish. Too, the door in that particular work has a textured metallic surface. And, in some works, Haddaway here and there has applied patterns in contrasting colors.

            In very few instances does he use one color for an entire work, and those tend to be more representational. An example is Daddy's Barking Dog, which is painted an all-over glossy white.

            For the most part, Haddaway's concern seems to be to maintain the individual identity of each sculptural element and to emphasize the parts that make the fragile-looking whole.

            It is a formalistic approach that is consistent with his shifting, fantastic, views of reality.