Sticks of graphite and charcoal can be clubs of brutality in the hands of Hugo Crosthwaite. At times the artist’s large- and medium-scale drawings, now on view at the San Diego Museum of Art, become original commentary that brutalize a viewer’s psyche with disturbing insight. More often, the messages in Crosthwaite’s drawings clumsily hit a viewer over the head with postmodern formulas.

Hugo Crosthwaite; Twins, 2007.

Graphite and charcoal on canvas; 72 x 72 inches.

^{Image courtesy of Van Cleve Fine Art.}

The exhibition of 11 drawings entitled Brutal Beauty: Drawings by Hugo Crosthwaite well display the artist’s gift for drawing. Crosthwaite uses a baroque range of light and dark values, and he renders many of his images in a slightly distorted manner that increases the sense of discomfort felt by the viewer.

Crosthwaite’s can create evocative irrational images. Such irrationality appears in his drawing entitled “Twins” (2007) where a smiling adolescent is forcing his fist down the throat of a stout squatting female figure with white hair and two left feet. These two figures float alongside a disembodied head in a dark area high in the overall image. An elongated chevron of negative space placed nearby becomes a storybook. The background consists of a jumbled neighborhood of buildings festooned with graffiti. The disjointed scene is nonsensical; but as the viewer’s subconscious kicks-in, the drawing is poignant as it pulls empathy and pathos from one’s emotional depths.

Many of the other images in this exhibition borrow from distracting sources and are too logical, which makes them seem formulaic. This occurs in “Tail for Two Cities” (2010), which was drawn onsite by the artist inside the museum’s gallery during the first several weeks of the exhibition. In front of a background of palm trees on one side and a distant city on the other, are two figures separated by a serpent-like fibrous element similar to the famous “Laocoön Group” sculpture in the Vatican Museum. The left figure wears a lucha libre-wrestling mask on top of his head as he waves a plucked chicken. In front of him is an AK-47 rifle defying gravity. On the right side another figure, armored with the heads of recognizable characters and clenched fists appropriated from comic books, stares toward the viewer with mouth agape. Spermatozoa shaped spatters emanate from the comic armored figure. To the right of this figural group floats a contradictory hybrid Glock/Colt 45 pistol. Checkerboard-like white rectangles interrupt the entire scene.

As absurd sounding as this might seem, it seems logical because the fantastic scene seems like a normal day at the office for comic book figures. The drawing’s checker of white rectangles intrudes on the scene and become irrelevant art marks. An abundance of art and popular references in an artwork is an overused art strategy today as is the association of cartoon violence with gun violence to render impotent the brutality of violent behavior. The workmanship of the drawing appears to be rushed and schematic as compared to the other better rendered artworks in the exhibit as well.

Another drawing in the exhibit, entitled “Covered Woman” (2001), features a seated female figure receding into a dark background. The drawing quotes the late 19^th-century sick girl paintings by the two Norwegian artists Edvard Munch and his mentor Christian Krohg. Although, Crosthwaite’s drawing is rendered in a flat wooden manner that makes it seem more like an awkward study of the two Norwegian artists’ sick girl subject. It is difficult to comprehend a subconscious reading of or form an emotional relationship with the work because the strong quotation of the sick girl subject keeps one’s attention stuck on Munch’s and Krohg’s contributions. The postmodern strategy of image borrowing works against the 21^st-century artist in this instance.

Hugo Crosthwaite;Bartholomé, 2004.

Graphite and charcoal on wood panel; 96 x 96 inches.

^{Image courtesy of SDMA. Museum purchase withfunds provided by}

Ken and Jacki Widder and by Kevin and Tamara Kinsella.

A drawing that almost works is “Bartholome” (2004). The upper half depicts barren rooftops empty save for signage devoid of lettering and many austere metal television antenna poles and their guide wires. This mysteriously creepy, lifeless expanse generates tremendous angst that words cannot give justice. The lower half of the drawing features several upright positioned bound corpses that imply gang or drug wars. The message strategy seems propagandistic because the bound corpses are literal and repetitious. Ironically, the dead figures breathe unintentional life into the lower portion of the drawing by literally populating it.

While a strong draftsman, Crosthwaite’s overall content occasionally hits its mark with acute precision but more often the images in this exhibit distract the viewer away from the artist’s intended destination by relying on formula and distracting popular culture and art historical references.