Body Work

A prepossessing art show at the Chateau Buffalo, a wine shop on Hertel Avenue displayed works by Elizabeth Kumrow-Capuano and Paul Alico, two artists who have sustained traumatic brain injury—the former due to cumulative damage caused by domestic violence, by, in her case, a person fully intending to marry her; the latter a fireman who had a wall fall on him while fighting a house fire.

Elizabeth Capuano's photographic selfportrait.

Their art is in one case strong, the other vital; one brave, the other brave but humble. It is about the people who made the work rather than the work itself—though both artists are more than competent and certainly interesting, one is compelling.

Paul Alico, whom I was not able to meet due to circumstances beyond his control, namely his medicine that peaks and falls off in the evening, shows eight vibrant oil pastels in scenes of firefighters on the job, nudes, and urban landscapes of local interest. The challenge working in oil chalk or pastel is to control the liquid values, as oil warms in the artist’s hand and makes it easy to mar strokes of the intended color, muddying hues and compromising vibrancy. The gliding and glistening textures of each mark create an intensity with the energy delivered by hand. Alico has a disciplined focus to his work. He situates his subject matter in strong bands of color in vivid contrast with deep, muted passages and highlights of bravura white. His pictures are remarkably fresh and lucid.

In the seven years since the men of Ladder 12 went up those stairs to meet eternity at World Trade One, a great many first responders have not made it home to rake off their boots. Firefighters, police, EMS workers, all face the narrowed part of risk again and again. Those whose brains are injured on duty are taken care of for life—and life is what they make of it.

Fighting back from injury, to coma, to diapers, to therapy, to cranial surgeries for abcessed hematomas, to medical regimens requiring even more arduous concentration all ideally with fervent support from fellows, family, and the reverent public who are indebted to the injured. Alico must represent, in absence, all of those damaged professionals who have made it back from crushing pain and confusion to give a glimpse of their sacrifice.

Elizabeth Capuano is a former fashion model now past all that, and her photo is a stirring, poignant work. It is a full glossy headshot with the glamorous modified mullet and the teased tresses of the 1980s complete with the swirl of raspberry scarf and Garbo gaze.

But reality abides in the crime-scene-like snapshots that surround the carefully framed portrait. These are freighted with malice: bruises, contusions, swellings, bite marks, all indicative of intentional harm inflicted by someone with plenty of time.

These are intimate exposures of deep pain worn under clothes and lived behind doors where the impact doesn’t show. But inside the skull are the worst effects of being “smacked around”: the insidious, irreversible cranial occlusions as the brain absorbs intemperate abuse, the stresses of which multiply, concussion after concussion, building in ignorance, a loss of short-term memory momentarily rationalized, fought against—mistaking people for other people, an instance of wondering how to drive, loss of trust in oneself, of self-confidence, of decision-making, all tending to reinforce the inert, passive state where the injured becomes witness to their own self-desruction as the batterer takes advantage of each lapse and an opportunity to profess sentiment and succors.

Capuano has been working with Robin Tirado of Venture Forthe, a traumatic brain injury rehabilitation agency in Niagara Falls, to put together this venue for brain-damaged artists in conjunction with Gary and Susi Schmitter of Chateau Buffalo. It’s a good match, tasting regional wines while looking at art in a value-neutral environment. Capuano’s other works are gentle and yet forceful. Her exercises in using sticks dipped in ink to draw on sheets of newsprint is refreshing and innocent—like drawings in the sand—tracing the lines in memory before the tide.

—j. tim raymond