Desmond Mason’s 10-year career as an National Basketball Association player may be over, but his artistic options are considerable, based on his work at the Oklahoma State Capitol, 2300 N Lincoln Blvd.

"The Non-Significant Significances" by Desmond Mason. Photo provided.

A bold use of color and manipulation of paint is found in many of the large, abstract, mostly acrylic paintings in Mason’s “Generation Next: Chapter 1” exhibit in the capitol’s East Gallery.

Six vertical and seven horizontal black marks accent a background that brings to mind a snowy forest in an acrylic and spray paint on wood composition called “Generation Next.”

Offering a commentary on this upbeat-sounding title, written between the marks, is a longer subtext, “The 13th Generation Will Be the Lost Generation,” which is scratched or written near the top of the work.

Reminiscent of a snowclad forest, too, is an untitled acrylic canvas in which evergreen trees are vaguely suggested, in front of a blue-violet winter sky.

Somewhat similar, but more abstract, is “Snowfall in the Forest,” an acrylic in which tiny specks of white paint dust a dark brown paper and canvas surface that resembles rusted metal.

Powerful, too, is a large untitled acrylic canvas in which broad or narrow gray-black and crimson marks provide visual punctuation for the work’s blue and white, sky-like, background spaces.

Even more ambitious are two very large, abstract expressionistic acrylic canvases, called “Nebula’s Aftermath” and a “Tribute to (Mark) Rothko,” which provide the show with giant bookends, of a sort.

Scrapes, streaks, floating marks and blobs of pure paint suggest the “Nebula’s Aftermath” in one, while a white vertical bar separates color field areas in the other, offering an offhand tribute to Rothko.

A rich, flowing, crimson background, broken by scratch marks and broad strokes of white, blue, green, black and yellow ocher, adds to the visual impact of Mason’s “The Object of 13.” Better focused is “The Recurring Echoes of the Lost,” a smaller, nearly square, mixed media work in which black calligraphic marks are almost covered up by a random pattern of perhaps spilled red paint.

Much murkier and nearly cancelling each other out are the bands of pigment in an acrylic canvas whose title, “My False Sense of Color Theory,” seems to offer a wry commentary on the artistic process.

More figurative and nearly operating as expressionistic self-portraits are two closeup studies of a face, one incorporating colorful acrylics, and the other done in dripping black-and-white oil paints.

A studio art major while playing on a basketball scholarship at Oklahoma State University, Mason played for five NBA teams, including the Oklahoma City Thunder, prior to retiring in 2009.

Sponsored by the Oklahoma Arts Council, the Oklahoma City artist’s show is recommended during its run through July 1 in the capitol’s first floor East Gallery.

Hours are from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Call 521-2931 or visit the website at www.arts.ok.gov for information.

Show / Hide Comments