Who’s Your Dada?
Carla Di Fonzo
“Intelligencer Journal”
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Friday November 22, 2002, p. 8

>Influenced by the anti-war movement, but with a modern flair, Georges Le Chevallier asks visual questions.

At first glance, the artwork of Georges Le Chevallier appears to be nothing but well-done collages with a certain flair. At second or third glance, viewers may begin to realize they’re looking at very structured forms of expressions told in the language of chaos.

Le Chevallier mixed media exhibit, featuring work created between 1998 and 2002, will continue at Millersville University’s Sykes Gallery until December 12. Don’t peruse the exhibit if you have little time to spare; absorbing his work require contemplation and patience. Most of Le Chevallier’s work is a series of fragmented recollections about his well-traveled past and his feelings about media overload in the 21st century, both told in nonlinear fashion.

At first, his approach may seem too hectic, but consider this: if one could project one’s memories or thoughts onto canvas, would they make any sense at first? Especially after they had time to stew in the subconscious, where symbols are the only form of communication.

His 1999 work, “Burn in Hell, ” seems inspired by alchemical imagery. The cornerstone of the pieces is a circular vessel halved in the middle. On top is a cheerful blue sky with fluffy clouds. “To Live in Heaven,” it reads. The bottom half is consumed by a red fire with no source, framed by the words “burn in hell.”

The rest of the canvas is occupied with landscapes of European cities, a heart, a front page of the New York Times with a nameless baseball player in mid-swing. What does it all mean? Le Chevallier doesn’t make clear, and for that matter, he probably doesn’t want to.

He’s not recording the past with his assemblages; he’s giving impressions of incidents, thoughts, people and places that he’s dealt with before. The literal meaning of his images isn’t as important as his how they make the viewer feel.

“Known as Judas” is a dark tribute to history’s most famous traitor. In the center, Le Chevallier has placed a scene of Mount Calvary after the crucifixion of Jesus. Three crosses stand on a mound in the background; closer is the silhouette of a bare tree with a hung man swinging from a branch – a clear depiction of Judas’ suicide.

Once again, the focal point on the canvas seems unrelated to the surrounding images, which include a dried flower, marble statues, a black-and-white photo of a photographer and a curious vine-like swirl that could be smoke or a coat hanger, depending on who you ask.

The dirtiest job of a historian is labeling some of the players as heroes and villains. Le Chevallier seems to be illustrating how an evil reputation even outlives the sinner. Or perhaps, on a less grandiose level, how one misguided action committed in a lifetime can make one feel dammed for eternity.

Le Chevallier’s eclectic sense of imagery can be attributed to his multicultural background. He was born in Paris and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he grew up speaking Spanish. As a teen, he moved to Los Angeles and later studied art in Spain and New York. Later, Le Chevallier traveled throughout Europe and Africa, where his work has been featured in exhibits. The artist has said previously that his travels around world provided him with inspiration.

He’s even acknowledged that his work inspires more questions than answers, but he claims questions are his primary reason for painting in the first place. “Without them (questions), there would be no reason to get out of bed in the morning,” he said to Daniel Burns, Millersville University assistant professor for the Department of Art. To him, questions move to create art. Having all the answers keeps one complacent.

His work is a modern descendant of Dadaism, the anti-art movement created between 1916 and 1924 as a response to World War I, bourgeois society and the conservatism of traditional thought. Dada artists, whether writers or painters, mocked past movements that primary followed a homogeneous set of rules.

Those who cultivated Dadaism, like Hugo Ball, Marcel Janco and Tristan Tzara, decided their movement would be anti-aesthetic, and not dependent on time or space. A single painting could therefore envelop everything and defy intellectual analysis. Le Chevallier seems to work by those principals.

“Originality” combines a dizzy splatter, blocks of color and a series of photos that, among other things, records the flight of a badminton birdie. Beneath the images is a quote: “Originality is a form of solitude.” The meaning behind it is obvious, in a mysterious kind of way.

Le Chevallier has given himself the freedom to create by his own rules. He builds layers by adhering postcards, photos and maps to his hand-painted images, often using text to pose more speculations about life. For him, personal journeys should be valued for the inspiration they create, not the questions they answer.