“A Surrealist who uses out of place and out of proportion imagery to provoke thought” is a phrase that many sources use to describe Belgian Surrealist artist René Magritte, but the same phrase might be applied to painter David Humphrey and his artwork. On display at the Lux Art Institute in Encinitas is an exhibition of artworks by Humphrey who was the recipient of the 2008 American Academy's Rome Prize. Humphrey makes paintings that appear to use the Dada method of free association (called automatism) and the surrealist method of painting from the subconscious mind, but the precise placement of his gestural brushstrokes in relationship to his other imagery betray their lack of real spontaneity.

Like Magritte, Humphrey’s painting “Seated” (1999) uses out of proportion imagery. A huge Buddha-like figure towers over a flat landscape spiced with two tiny skyscrapers. The figure is rendered in red outlines and sports two and a half heads. A bent blue crescent wrench, akin to a floating boomerang, appears on the left shoulder of the Buddha-like figure. The odd painting relies on free association; it is literally a huge figure set in a tiny landscape with a literal monkey-wrench thrown in for the sake of confusion. Like many Surrealist artists, Humphrey presents an image with no definitive interpretation; and, like a Rorschach inkblot, the viewer may use free association to interpret the imagery. Every viewer may have a different explanation of what the image conveys.

Another similarity to Magritte is the manner in which Humphries paints his work. Like Magritte, most of Humphries’s paintings have a flat, tint, and tonal quality. The viewer is not distracted from the content by the spectacle of seductive lush, bright colors and rich, glossy surfaces. When the viewer looks at one of Humphries’s artworks, the viewer may tend to better enjoy the content of what he or she sees rather than the surface of the painting.

For this exhibition Humphrey painted a site specific mural casually on the unique movable wall that opens Lux’s gallery to the open air and neighboring landscape. The mural’s image partially recreates the view across the valley that appears while the movable wall is open. At its ultimate viewing perspective, the wall is supposed to be partially open so that the viewer can see both the actual view and Humphries’s schematic rendering simultaneously. This placement of a painted view in front of an actual view mimics a famous painting, “La condition humaine” (1933), by René Magritte, which is an important art history joke. Humphrey’s mural is a smart homage to the Belgian master.

David Humphries; "Thanks!" (2004).

Acrylic on canvas; 60 x 72 inches.

^{Image courtesy of the artist and Lux Institute.}

In a painting entitled “Nicole” (2009–10), Humphrey pairs a poorly rendered yellow and red crouching figure with an apparent series of spontaneous linear green, gray, and red gestural brush marks. Although, the cooler green and dark gray triangular marks are specifically located in the upper half of the painting and the warm red gestural marks appear in the lower half. This creates a deliberate spatial color relationship. The triangular green and black linear strokes become distant hills and red linear marks become foreground. This relationship firmly plants the figure within an abstracted landscape. When comprehended, the painting’s construction no longer reads as free association, thus the painting seems more similar to the stilted constructions of post-modern artist David Salle.

Humphrey tries very hard to create paintings that try to confound the general convention of what is considered tasteful. A rainbow streaks across the sky above snow-covered mountains in his painting entitled “Thanks!” (2004). Standing on an iceberg floating in a river landscape, a male figure wears a sailor’s cap, fur boots, and an out of place college mascot costume while waving a bubblegum-pink flower into the air.

Rendered in a naïve, cartoonish fashion, "Thanks!" is ill proportioned. The composition has a schoolchild’s storybook quality and suggests a similar cheerful message. The included bubblegum hue flower and rainbow combined with the cartoon quality of the painting clearly flaunts low culture tacky.

“Thanks!” informs the viewer of Humphrey’s alliance to trendy anti-aesthetic style, which pleases many art insiders and the lounge-crowd. This anti-aesthetic seems to be a sucessful formula. Unfortunately, formulas can be pitfalls in themselves, and styles may go out of fashion.

Although, another new work created at the institute betrays Humphrey’s anti-aesthetic. Above a white rear door in the galley, the artist inserted a drop cloth painted with yellow and red circular splotches into a light well above the gallery. He then attached a small piece of green bubble wrap next to the exit sign on the wall above the door. Against the right corner of the same gray cement wall, he stacked several red paint cans. If a viewer gets back far enough, one might see the whole wall, door, and light well together with Humphrey’s colorful additions as one poetically transient and beautiful installation.

David Humphrey has conceptual and aesthetic talent, but most of his paintings seem mired in a trendy anti-aesthetic style.