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Michael Ornstein with the painting of his aunt used this past summer for a production of "The Clean House." |
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Michael Ornstein’s painting technique utilizes his fingers rather than the conventional brush. |
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Hands-on artist shows at WHAT
By Melora B. North
Banner Staff
A recent morning spent with actor-artist Michael Ornstein flew by as we chatted in the lobby at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater just outside the Julie Harris Stage. An Equity actor, Ornstein is in WHAT’s current production of “Love Song,” but that’s not his only connection to the theater. He is a prolific artist who paints in oil on canvas. In fact, one of his paintings is on the cover of the playbill for this production, and another was on the front of the playbill for “The Clean House,” which was on the boards earlier in the season, and both are on display in the lobby where an exhibition of 35 of his paintings now hangs.
“That woman is my aunt. I painted it in 1985,” he says of the tired-looking woman wielding a mop on the cover for “The Clean House,” her lips, in contrast to her chore, a burst of crimson red that illuminates her face. Of the couple on the playbill for “Love Song” he says, “I imagine they fell in love the night before and are leaving the apartment in the morning to go off for breakfast or maybe coffee.”
All of Ornstein’s paintings have stories, some not so happy, others joyous explosions of color that blow away convention in a swell of imagination and invention born in the artist’s mind.
“I don’t like to paint what can be photographed,” he says of his work. Which may account for a tribute the artist has created for his young daughter Angelena, now two.
“When she was a baby I would cradle her in my lap and paint while she slept there,” he says. “I did 18 paintings for her, 18 because that’s good luck in the Jewish faith. I stretched and nailed the canvas to the wall. They’re like tapestries, stained glass windows from the temple.” The works are a complicated montage of squiggles, triangles, circles, small eyeball kind of shapes and other unusual doodles rendered on top of more realistic paintings to be picked out between the lines. Some are small works, others quite massive, all sharing secret glimpses into what is underneath. This technique was originally the method Ornstein used to give backgrounds to several of his portraits, but with the advent of his daughter it grew to take on a new dimension. “The background for my portraits became the foreground,” he says.
And all this work is done with the artist’s fingers. “I’m a finger painter,” Ornstein, whose whimsical work contains surprising detail and sensitivity, says with a smile in his eyes.
One particularly haunting painting is “Purple Heart,” a serious portrait, sans doodle background, of a young man whom Ornstein saw in “Alive Bay Memories.” The man had been shot in the head, and the depiction is a ghost-like portrait surrounded by an aura of hazy smoke in faded orange accented by penetrating blue eyes. Another serious subject Ornstein tackles is the 1921 Tulsa race riots, during which, he says, planes sliced through the skies dropping Molotov cocktails over the city. To portray his story Ornstein painted separate portraits of a war-torn family: grandfather, father and son, all grouped together, all clear pictures of downtrodden, wounded people caught up in a senseless war of despair, hurt and anger.
On a lighter note, “Matador” is a large depiction of a Spanish icon standing straight, a bunch of flowers hidden behind his back. “A lot of my paintings are about families and love,” he says. “Sunday Park” presents the image of a man and woman strolling through the grass on a bright day, the world their oyster, and “Clearing” is of a man chopping down a tree in Quebec, where Ornstein lived for several months a few years ago while concentrating on his painting. Another is a portrait of musician Patty Larkin, “Red on Blue,” born of “three or four faces painted beneath hers.”
Over the years Ornstein has traveled to the Southwest where he collected rocks that he grinds down to make his own paint. He also uses more conventional methods. “I make my own paint from pigment much like talcum powder. I mix it with linseed oil. It keeps the paint from yellowing,” he explains. “It’s how people painted a long time ago. I can’t imagine painting with commercial paint.”
Now a resident of Cape Cod for the past year, the artist, who hails from New York with a diversion to Los Angeles, is happy to be a part of the community where he lives with his wife, Zoe, and their daughter in Centerville. In just a year, he has made an impact on the Cape art community. having exhibited in the Cahoon Museum’s “Brush Off” and “ABC’s of Abstract.” He has also shown at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod’s Bloomin’ Art and Celebration of the Arts as well as the Festival of the Arts in Chatham. Rounding out things, he has had a solo show at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod.
While he is presently concentrating on his art, Ornstein is happy to once again be on stage for this production. “I’ve waited to work here for a really long time,” he says. But no grass has grown under his feet in the interim. When not painting these past years he directed a video project, which he wrote, shot and directed, has done some documentaries and acted in several films and television programs including “Law and Order,” “Seinfeld,” “Homicide” and “New York Undercover.”
Although Ornstein’s work hangs at WHAT, the lobby is not always open. Those interested in viewing the artist’s work are invited to call or e-mail him for a private showing: (917) 664-8215, www.michaelornstein.com.
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Arsenic is a delicious poison
Outer Cape Gallery Listings
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Nov 15th, 2007