While many artists who are doubly talented as illustrators and fine artists go to great lengths to separate their different areas of endeavor, Cliff John Kearns takes just the opposite approach, integrating printing plates from his past illustrations into his mixed media assemblages. Not only is this approach holistic but it endows his pieces with a refreshing autobiographical authenticity, in Kearns' exhibition at Agora Gallery, 415 West Broadway, in SoHo, from June 10 through July 1, with a reception on June 15, from 6 to 8 PM.
  Also quite prominent in Kearns' pieces are wooden and metal type, obsolete computer parts, and above all various numbers. Indeed, the title of his exhibition is “Lyrical Numerology,” and he explains in his artist's statement, “Numbers are a fact of life. This numbered series suggests that each piece is related to another and therefore can only express one small facet or portion of our experience.”
Other symbols, such as the heart and the cross, are juxtaposed by the artist to “express the relationship between the passion or love and hurt or sacrifice that most life experiences embody. Quite often, one can't get passionately involved or in love with someone or something without feeling some hurt, pain, or incurring sacrifice at some point throughout the course of that encounter or endeavor.”
Ripped plywood and other bits of 3-D objects and materials not only add to the complex symbolic meanings of Kearns' compositions, but also enhance their textural qualities.  A wry sense of humor is evident in some pieces, along with an awareness of the Pop implications of employing one's former commercial illustrations within a fine art context, as seen in one work in oil and mixed media, where a fragmented image of furniture is combined with a text that says, “Image Twenty goes with the colors of the sofa.” However, Kearns also aims for an emotional suggestiveness and a depth which is generally not present in Pop art. In this regard, while the formal qualities in his work are often akin to Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, in terms of the former's use of imagistic fragments and the latter's use of letters and numerals, his pieces project an intimate poetry closer in feeling to the boxes of Joseph Cornell.
Kearns, however, has his own unique vocabulary of images and forms, which he employs to express a broad range of subjects and emotions, ranging from the relative optimistic to the darkly evocative. What strikes one most immediately about his pieces is their formal elegance, with assemblage and collage combined with painted textures to achieve an impressive range of tactile contrasts. Oil paint is employed by the artist to unify his compositions, with sensuously pigmented surfaces and vibrant colors creating a rich aesthetic context for the various 3-D elements, which sometimes include plexiglass and mirrors that integrate the viewer, as well, by means of reflection.
However, Cliff Kearns never employs materials for their mere novelty. Rather, each element of his compositions is obviously intended to convey a specific meaning, even if it is not spelled out in any obvious way. For all the visual/tactile appeal that makes his mixed media assemblages so consistently engaging, they are also rich in content that the perceptive viewer will invariably find rewarding.    

­­Maurice Taplinger