that there are limitless ways to express the
energy of the animal world. In Trivieri’s
vision, animals constantly shift into other
things and back again, as if seen in dreams.
How does one put into words the restless
visual imagery of a drawing like Still Life?
In this ballpoint pen drawing, we see a
raccoon on the right-hand side of the
composition. The face of this familiar
animal is unmistakable, with its whitetrimmed, dark eyes. But, look closely: The
top of the raccoon’s head is formed by two
birds lined up head-to-head. The raccoon’s
ear is another beast seen from above—is
this a snake’s head? Whatever it is, it is also
an ear. The raccoon’s body is a mesh of
pod-like shapes with peas in them that are
sometimes eyes.
The raccoon’s right-side whiskers grow into
the face of the center figure in this drawing,
a figure that has eyes on its forearms, and
these forearms, on close inspection, really
appear to be fish turned vertically. The
eyes on the forearms go to yet another
embedded face in this drawing—see the
nose toward the bottom center of the
composition? Faces small and large hide
and then emerge in Trivieri’s work.
edged detail. Trivieri moves back and forth
between the vague and the exact in his
work, producing images that operate like
dreams: some things in a dream seem quite
clear and exact, others vague as smoke.
How are we to understand a Trivieri
drawing such as this? Well, how are we
to understand a poem? The artist gives us
clues and metaphors in essentially the same
way a poet does. Lace is fragile yet elegant.
The looming sun fish appears outsized if
not outlandish, but coexists with the manmade patterns of lace. Perhaps he is fragile,
too, and, equally special. Lace is, after all, a
fabric considered precious.
Trivieri can be fun, too. He paints fish
on a vintage photo of a dog, and the dog
appears to be tattooed. On the dog’s hind
leg is a blue face. Why? Again, think
poetry: Why not? People think they “own”
dogs. Of course we do not. We live with
them. Dog owners often decorate their
homes or their cars or even themselves with
dog imagery. Why not turn that equation
around? Also, Trivieri’s blue face might be
a sly comment on the famous Blue Dog
artist. If you can paint blue dogs, I’ll paint
a blue person on a dog, how about that?
Then, there are Trivieri images that are
simply beautiful. His Rabbit is such a piece.
Another airbrush painting, this Rabbit
could be a cloud. It is a single animal seen
in a moment of reverie, presented to us
as a possible way of thinking about the
subject. Trivieri clearly loves his subjects
and respects them. He uses his emotional
reactions to animals to orchestrate his
fantastic interpretations of them.
The CMA has only begun to mine its
rich and varied Vogel Collection for
small, jewel-like exhibitions such as
Daryl Trivieri’s Fantastic Animals. P