| Hendrix | B. Sharp |
The above concerns the objectivity of Sharp's things, but there is another more emotional category, given to multiple textures and expressions of in- compatibility, a visual dissonance or visual equivalent to the personality of rock and roll, the series of portraits titles WOODSTOCK 69. In these works an impulsive whimsy grabs at the illusional materials of paint and glass, gouache, hand molded gold and silver leaf, pencil, photography, as the case may be. In the wilderness of Woodstock 69 Sharp's collage figures convey the time's expressionism, the costumes and instruments we may remember that come alive again, the figure under control of what a modern composer termed "emancipation of the dissonance." In the time- stop of a photograph Sharp builds a portrait sculpture of the figure in layers of the crystal rock under the clear pane of his surface, not unlike the window of a second-hand store or pawn shop of the time, revitalizing and epoch that lives, if at all, as nostalgia. The portraits density is made of conflicting elements that startle the eye as their sounds had violent decibels almost painful to hear, addictive and sometimes fatal. Sharp it seems, intends to portray the esthetic of that time.
Robert Horn, U.S. Editor of the Quarterly review "XX Siècle"
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Bobby Sharp, Oneonta, New York
