Creepy but cool, guys groove at Gallery Neptune

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo photos courtesy of Chris rossi (Left, from left) Standing between ‘‘Abe Cross” and ‘‘Summer Camp,” Ed Bisese is attached to his guys. Click here to enlarge this photo (Top) In ‘‘Stealing,” this guy is up to no good.

Bisese has filled the compact Gallery Neptune in Bethesda with a dozen images of individual men, either standing or lumbering across their two-foot square spaces. The show titled ‘‘A Perfect Garage” is on view through May 27.

Whether Bisese’s figures are meant to be surrealist nightmares or simply Mr. Green Jeans out for his morning constitutional, getting the artist to talk about his ideas isn’t easy. His mild manner and thoughtful demeanor sharply contrast with the images he has created: distorted smiling faces, some with razor thin teeth, others wearing bizarre masks. Some fellows are outfitted in oversized pants; one potbellied man walks shirtless through a tidy suburban neighborhood; a few sport an extra leg or arm. The settings are strangely familiar and comforting suburban spaces: a backyard complete with cyclone fence, an office sparsely decorated with a metal file cabinet, bookshelf and telephone. The figures strangely transform the scene. It’s easy to wonder — and perhaps worry — what they are up to.

Bisese genuinely seems surprised when the word ‘‘scary” is used to describe his figures, but then quickly suggests that each ‘‘viewer will come away with a different perception.”

Carrying a sketchbook wherever he goes, the artist is always examining his world, taking notes and making sketches for a possible art piece. His varied sources include ‘‘American Idol” contender William Hung, who earned his quarter hour of fame by singing off key.

‘‘Hung has so much heart. He enjoys it,” Bisese says, adding that while critics laughed at the singer, ‘‘I wondered what it would be like, if I could be so brave.”

While he sees his monstrous men as benign, gallery owner Elyse Harrison believes ‘‘his interpretation of people, animals and the settings he chooses to paint them in combines the ordinary with the unusual.

‘‘I like that kind of thinking. It makes you examine your own surroundings more.”

Outsider art influences Bisese, but with a master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Maryland and a degree in landscape architecture from Virginia Tech, he observes, ‘‘I’m not on the outside heap, I’m on the inside.”

Like many creative types, making art is his side job. The landscape architect creates residential designs, noting that he is ‘‘excited about making the ideal place” for clients.

And although the landscape career came way after he decided he was an artist, he saw this field as a perfect way to be creative and earn a living.

Bisese also has taught figure drawing at the Smithsonian and at Prince George’s Community College.

With a lengthy list of exhibits of his paintings and sculptures on his resume, Bisese doesn’t worry about selling or making it big.

‘‘I would do this if I didn’t make any money,” he says.

‘‘The Perfect Garage” is on view through May 27 at Gallery Neptune, 4808 Auburn Ave., Bethesda. Gallery hours are noon to 6 p.m. Thursday through Saturday or by appointment. Call 301-718-0809 or visit www.galleryneptune.com .