tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83681138111452859592024-03-21T00:43:09.479-07:00First Fridays Kansas City ReviewA monthly look at the Kansas City gallery opening hoopla.mkuhlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04592066268729442981noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8368113811145285959.post-82223016338466134222011-06-08T20:56:00.000-07:002011-06-08T20:56:56.670-07:00Movin' on up to the East Side...we finally got our piece of the pieAfter nine months of independently publishing my art reviews on this blog, I have finally made the jump and found a new home for my First Friday reviews at <a href="http://ereview.org/">ereview.org</a>. I'm very excited to be accepted as a writer for ereview, and you can continue to find my monthly reviews there shortly after every First Friday. Thank you!mkuhlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04592066268729442981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8368113811145285959.post-18839935984879004972011-05-11T16:37:00.000-07:002011-05-13T13:33:40.497-07:00I pity the fool that missed this opening...you gotta grow up sometime...wow. Um, for real? Ok...the mad scientist from another dimension...you know, like the Jonas brothers or the Lawrence brothers, but not lame...we need a safari, not a stroll through the park<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbwr8g57hDdZ9Qgv5_p0c5b5b9hAr64YkEFnN6AGVSqioLbgtgNQbc3i3aIyL-nsU2vL3e3C8qcJk9qzESYgfq2y-pUrDRJiOxsmXNqkN6UzqSlP0xjBlS8PQ4dhfmycDmK-F6Q9hP3AE/s1600/6297227_47.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbwr8g57hDdZ9Qgv5_p0c5b5b9hAr64YkEFnN6AGVSqioLbgtgNQbc3i3aIyL-nsU2vL3e3C8qcJk9qzESYgfq2y-pUrDRJiOxsmXNqkN6UzqSlP0xjBlS8PQ4dhfmycDmK-F6Q9hP3AE/s320/6297227_47.jpg" width="263" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A photo by Andres Serrano included in<br />
"America: Now and Here." Serrano became <br />
well-known for his controversial photo <br />
"Piss Christ," which claimed to portray a <br />
crucifix in a jar of the artist's urine.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> This month’s First Friday festivities were unusual in that they were completely dominated by a single show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t ask me how, but for one night on May 6, Kansas City was selected as the first of three cities to be transformed into a nexus of contemporary creative culture by the traveling show entitled “<a href="http://americanowandhere.org/">America:Now and Here</a>.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The show features over 150 artists, filmmakers, poets, musicians, and playwrights in a daring attempt to represent a broad, cross-sectional sampling of the best that American culture has to offer, ranging from <a href="http://www.sting.com/">Sting</a> to <a href="http://www.philipglass.com/">Philip Glass</a>, to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rauschenberg">RobertRauschenberg</a>, to <a href="http://www.cindysherman.com/">Cindy Sherman</a>, to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Albee">Edward Albee</a>, to <a href="http://www.joanbaez.com/">Joan Baez</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yes, even <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Nimoy">Leonard Nimoy</a> is included.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had never known Nimoy in any capacity beyond his role as Dr. Spock on the original Star Trek series until I saw his name next to a black and white photo of several overweight nude women posing ala Matisse’s dancing nudes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is exactly Kansas City needs events such as “Now and Here.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a show with work that is a bit more new and edgy than most First Friday shows, and as a result people unexpectedly discover all kinds of new and exciting things when exposed to it.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Now and Here” is such a large show that it doesn’t really do justice to speak about any individual pieces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They all exist in a context with each other, which is fitting because the show is intended to, and does, exist within the larger context of modern America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like our country, it is a rough mixture of disparate components, but in some areas they are able to blend together a little more smoothly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pieces of completely different character abut one another, and the show stretches over a massive area, but all these different pieces belong together because they are united under the same ideals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“America: Now and Here” is on view at the Leedy-Voulkos Gallery, The Base Gallery, The Beggar’s Table, Arts Incubator, The Sherry Leedy Gallery of Contemporary Art, and perhaps some other places that I didn’t get to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The show is listed as running through May 28, so be sure to make the trip down to the Crossroads before then to see what is perhaps the most ambitious First Fridays showing to date.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Jeremy Rockwell and Jeromy Morris at the Scarlett Garnet<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpZmSOSkMQNJ2N-VDir_r7wUeBYEdA_tu4joh1ULhic8Ot2j5lnV3eKJcKHNNAj2JdUW9Gajq-Aj8wwmQHMTjv9YkoVZesYRTB8RPE-vRQaDAkc6XFliYsSTrIhibrsHmJ50ricBSEhbg/s1600/DSC_0011.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpZmSOSkMQNJ2N-VDir_r7wUeBYEdA_tu4joh1ULhic8Ot2j5lnV3eKJcKHNNAj2JdUW9Gajq-Aj8wwmQHMTjv9YkoVZesYRTB8RPE-vRQaDAkc6XFliYsSTrIhibrsHmJ50ricBSEhbg/s320/DSC_0011.JPG" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A small glimpse at some of the work<br />
from the Rockwell-Morris show.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> It’s difficult to think of something to say about Jeremy Rockwell and Jeromy Morris’s two-person show at the Scarlett Garnet because the exhibit lacks any specific focus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having never seen work by either artist before, I’m not even sure which pieces belong to whom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only guide to the show is a hand-drawn diagram of the pieces on the wall with a corresponding price list, and the names “Rockwell+Morris” written on it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This presentation is not atypical of the Scarlett Garnet, but despite the informal presentation and lack of cohesiveness in the work, it was one of the more interesting shows outside of the “America: Now and Here” showings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There are plenty of strong suits present in the works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inventively rendered graphic images and patterning are present in several pieces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, these stronger elements are conceptually and technically spread throughout the experimentation of two artists who are in the early stages of developing an artistic identity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most notable pieces appear to be either screen printed or photo-transferred images of cityscapes onto wood panels.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The high contrast and intricate detail present in these pieces help them stand out from the rest of the works, and by far the largest piece in the show was a roughly four by four-foot panel of a New York street scene, which was too large to hang and instead situated off to the side on the floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ_Jb_DSYlo8m32v4A7q-6qITVKUm-PPBDAcTMlaJ0bPCB7oNUHMy2mflCyoO6xf96RvN0micCH0X1Hhe5oqMMKpC85OU6GjEeNmakD6FAHk1ejhYc2fxRBeLR7NaJ7lw15_QMDFA-JWE/s1600/DSC_0013.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ_Jb_DSYlo8m32v4A7q-6qITVKUm-PPBDAcTMlaJ0bPCB7oNUHMy2mflCyoO6xf96RvN0micCH0X1Hhe5oqMMKpC85OU6GjEeNmakD6FAHk1ejhYc2fxRBeLR7NaJ7lw15_QMDFA-JWE/s640/DSC_0013.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A detailed look at the largest piece in the Rockwell-Morris show</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> These pieces are visually pleasing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They possess a nostalgic quality by featuring older structures that feel like relics of the past because of the technique used to create them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The scenes are further strengthened by adding small embellishments of color and also allowing the bare wood to show through in parts, which manipulates the space to a state beyond being a straight representational image.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Developing a visual style is a period that every artist must go through before moving on to developing a concept for their work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Judging from these pieces and venue they are in it is likely that the creator is still at this early stage in their career, so it would be unfair to expect anything more out of the work.</span><br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg45Te8Acdt1vKKrV5vBhbACvKWTAjDnAKtFRutUUwZQPbcOSHXBuu0AdCajxLO-JJs3ZTyZX5WUXrxvjHTkkYBZGf5hAQRlzW1ms9zrHLYSOvo602KxxDWaw2PmGqf-ArUSnP1Jm4xen0/s1600/DSC_0003.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg45Te8Acdt1vKKrV5vBhbACvKWTAjDnAKtFRutUUwZQPbcOSHXBuu0AdCajxLO-JJs3ZTyZX5WUXrxvjHTkkYBZGf5hAQRlzW1ms9zrHLYSOvo602KxxDWaw2PmGqf-ArUSnP1Jm4xen0/s320/DSC_0003.JPG" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pieces such as this one don't live up<br />
to the standards established by<br />
other pieces in the show</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Considering the stage that the artists are working at it is an interesting show that presents many glimpses of promise, but one slightly unsettling thing about the show is how varied the experimentation is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just judging from everything in the show one might assume that the work of as many as seven artists was being represented.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The styles and subject matter of the works are all over the map, and they demonstrate at least enough technical acumen that the artists should be zeroing in on a more specific artistic identity or idea than is demonstrated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> For example, there is plenty of evidence in the work to suggest that a wood panel covered in paint and glitter is not their best work and doesn’t belong in the show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another piece which features an abstract pattern created by a pile of cut logs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ends of the logs face towards the viewer and create an abstract image by allowing the wood grain beneath to show through them. By itself it is not a bad piece, but in the context of the rest of their show it feels incomplete and simplistic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is obvious that Rockwell and Morris have talent, but it is essential that they raise their own standards and learn to expect more consistency out of their own work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Otherwise they may never successfully find their way through the experimental process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Steve Brisendine at Plenum Space Gallery<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This is going to be a very difficult and unconventional review to write for a few reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One reason is that this is the first time, at least that I’m aware of, I will be writing a review about an art reviewer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Steve Brisendine is relatively well-known for his column “ArtKC 365,” which appears on the website </span><a href="http://www.ereview.org/"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: blue;">www.ereview.org</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his column he makes a daily post about a show currently on view in the Kansas City area.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His posts are usually no more than a couple hundred words and focus on describing the work and what the art is about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It might sound easy to do post something like this every day, but in reality it has to be mind-bogglingly difficult.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It might only take an hour or so to write and post one of these entries, but most people lack the conviction to stick to a diet or exercise for twenty minutes a day, much less produce a new piece of writing daily.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not to mention that the pool of artists has to shrink pretty rapidly at this pace.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I only review about five artists a month and it’s sometimes hard to find work by people I haven’t reviewed before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So respect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Another thing that makes this review unconventional is that I don’t have any pictures to go with it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I aim to avoid contact with the artist when I review shows because I don’t want their additional input to skew my perception of the work itself, and if it’s a show I don’t particularly like it can be awkward trying to scrounge up some vague compliments.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Photographing work at a show is a lightning rod for the artist’s attention, so I try to do it as surreptitiously as possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Typically I just have to hang around for a moment until there are enough other viewers to distract the artist from my activity, but I was pessimistic that that opportunity would occur at Brisendine’s show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ascending the stairs into Plenum Space the far wall can be seen first.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then as you continue up your head begins at the floor-level and rises as you enter in the middle of the room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This entrance offers a small preview of the show before plunging you right into the middle of it, and my reaction as I made this entrance was exactly this: “Huh?...whoa.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For his show Brisendine chose to display small canvases that were each covered in a single solid color.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Besides the title, choice of color, canvas size, and in a few instances the use of a round or diamond-oriented canvas, there is no difference between any of the pieces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My initial reaction was to turn around and leave, but then I realized that the only people there were me, Brisendine, and a guest of his seated at the far end of the room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was in too deep to cut and run, so I made my way round the room and read the titles as he watched in anticipation of my reaction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I tried to procure an explanation for the show but ended up grabbing at air.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was it serious?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was it a reaction to his feeling so self-conscious of his role as an art reviewer that he became reluctant to make his own work?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was I supposed to feel like a fool by pretending to be interested in looking at what are essentially blank canvases?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Fortunately another person entered and he began talking with them, and in overhearing his conversation I discovered that each canvas was actually a specific colored shape that had a real-life meaning to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, one canvas represented the Libyan flag, which is a plain green rectangle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Several of the other pieces he mentioned also represented flags, but what got me was that he would actually call it a flag rather than a painting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are painted canvases, not flags, and without an explanation the viewer is not going to make that connection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The format of the presentation is crucial when making such minimalistic work, and in this show there is not enough information to portray the idea that these pieces represent symbols.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rather, they are objects that lack the qualities that we have come to expect from art done on canvas.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>If the flag pieces were actually plain colored rectangles of fabric, then perhaps the idea of the shape as a symbol would get across.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or maybe if some of the pieces were universal icons, like a red octagon, it would occur to the viewer that the others should be thought of as symbols as well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But as it stands now, it is an extremely minimalistic showing of colored canvases.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Certain that the show couldn’t retain a viewer for more than a few seconds and attract a large enough audience to conceal my photographic activities, I left without any photos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fortunately I don’t think that photos are really necessary in describing the show.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Guinotte Wise at the Hilliard Gallery<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij899xmdI4CK95tKXv_TvObCXYGAGcLCK2EOvAIwxbHVEXj4GEnk9XhsFKLpUcjSu04awhs9Tds7t_BNN8p3B3HZ5kww7jIWBG5hr5HD2sliE1ov3a0epf5S5HDkmLzYVSAyLFl3O0atg/s1600/DSC_0047.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij899xmdI4CK95tKXv_TvObCXYGAGcLCK2EOvAIwxbHVEXj4GEnk9XhsFKLpUcjSu04awhs9Tds7t_BNN8p3B3HZ5kww7jIWBG5hr5HD2sliE1ov3a0epf5S5HDkmLzYVSAyLFl3O0atg/s320/DSC_0047.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some scientists believe this wheeled equine animal<br />
to be a modern relative of the giant metal rockinghorse</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Since I began attending First Fridays in Kansas City, there is one piece that I’ve seen every time without fail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a large five to six-foot tall metal sculpture of a rocking horse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve seen this shiny metal fixture on the sidewalk outside of several different galleries on the east side of the Crossroads, most often in front of the Hilliard Gallery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I came to think of the horse as an odd symbol for First Fridays.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wasn’t labeled, it was placed in spots that invited interaction despite being too awkward to truly interact with, and it had a somewhat gaudy, outsider look to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Obviously nobody was interested in buying the thing, yet its owner placed it outside every First Friday to mark the occasion of the event.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now, finally, I think I may have discovered who made the garish creature after seeing the show by Guinotte Wise at the Hilliard Gallery.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0f-LSw8uE1KJ4QItXfJTIuOgfs2RfzBlqeCS4fKx6NAzZGRP0y97wooMFW_xJtkyA4b76N0xfZxn2_wK9armIl6bPa6yHmayVR0wf-Cx_R9iG4_YsUVlcfpNqJ733ACQZkC-nsJlaNJs/s1600/DSC_0055.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0f-LSw8uE1KJ4QItXfJTIuOgfs2RfzBlqeCS4fKx6NAzZGRP0y97wooMFW_xJtkyA4b76N0xfZxn2_wK9armIl6bPa6yHmayVR0wf-Cx_R9iG4_YsUVlcfpNqJ733ACQZkC-nsJlaNJs/s320/DSC_0055.JPG" width="214" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Looking at the work of Guinotte Wise, it is easy to envision the place where he lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has to be somewhere out in the country where he can keep a huge selection of scrap metal to draw from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most likely he has an old barn full of junk that could fittingly appear on the TV show American Pickers, or maybe Hoarders, in which he spends much of his time tinkering with small metal odds and ends, occasionally turning a finished piece of art out of the mess.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If given the chance who would turn down an opportunity to do that every day?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> What sets Wise’s work apart from others who make similar sculptures from scrap metal is the refinement of his finished product.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many artists fall victim to the appeal that the materials themselves have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are content to create random assemblages out of old license plates and the like, turning a pile of metal scrap into a stuck-together pile of metal scrap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Wise is beyond this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His sculptures come with a purposeful refinement, and the characters of the materials themselves act as an embellishment to the piece rather than being the main attraction. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Many of his pieces either contain gun elements or combine create a gun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of the more interesting works in Wise’s show are sci-fi inspired ray guns complete with custom display pedestals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These pieces become fascinating artifacts through the completeness of the vision and presentation, physically creating something that previously only existed in cartoons, movies, and our imaginations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most interesting of the gun sculptures is perhaps one that stuck a typesetting drum onto the barrel of a .38 revolver.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The drum appears to belong to a piece of printing machinery from the 30s or 40s, and looks like something that was smuggled out of a William S. Burroughs dream.</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXXzTwNlLm6ssU9RQFwcyk0RthnrADkH0udcm0n-TV74P5PacNFG9-DwpmHmpraSbATOsITWxzJFbPEsgb1zbWXbgglnvuFyJI33XXUJsaXamLmfekljOBteHRBXpui2sNP1KbQRZmZGY/s1600/DSC_0051.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXXzTwNlLm6ssU9RQFwcyk0RthnrADkH0udcm0n-TV74P5PacNFG9-DwpmHmpraSbATOsITWxzJFbPEsgb1zbWXbgglnvuFyJI33XXUJsaXamLmfekljOBteHRBXpui2sNP1KbQRZmZGY/s640/DSC_0051.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of Wise's ray gun pieces</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The same completeness of vision benefits several of his abstract wall-hanging pieces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While these works are more akin to the random assemblage style of working, they are compositionally and materially very well thought out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wise allows the materials to stand alone as unique objects that also fit into a larger purposeful composition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The end result is similar to an abstract painting that is enhanced through an added variety of space, texture, and material, which becomes far more interesting than could ever be achieved through paint alone.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2qT7AJ5C0oAr8qAvQJh6EO4mc2zdWuW69-Ua1LGdpfTYJrt2wi9ILWSPNtcohYNIUdOdMMnOv6N299pHsLWW4En2xxwrNPZv8wkrrmALVN9wwJHTv1xdrVU6Vce22BY0GwfJL5NML16E/s1600/DSC_0046.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2qT7AJ5C0oAr8qAvQJh6EO4mc2zdWuW69-Ua1LGdpfTYJrt2wi9ILWSPNtcohYNIUdOdMMnOv6N299pHsLWW4En2xxwrNPZv8wkrrmALVN9wwJHTv1xdrVU6Vce22BY0GwfJL5NML16E/s320/DSC_0046.JPG" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This "gumball baby" is not the darling<br />
of this particular show</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The successful pieces of the show are all marked with a distinctly odd, quirky feel to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are unusual objects that don’t make a lot of sense and push the viewer’s imagination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of the less-successful pieces in the show are the ones that seem to gravitate towards producing a quick, easy solution out of the materials.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One example of this is a piece that consists of a robot made by fixing arms and legs to a gumball machine with a baby doll’s head in the machine reservoir. As humans, we look for the human element in things, and producing anything that resembles a person is typically the first response anyone has to an object.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If one hundred people were handed a gumball machine and instructed to make a sculpture out of it, I’d wager that at least eighty of them would come up with some kind of humanoid form.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Along the base of one wall were several small robots that suffer from the same problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the robots were incredibly large they might have the possibility of being remarkable, but instead there is nothing more to them than being a handful of patched together robots.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wise also has several animal forms on display which, while being similar in construction to the robot and humanoid pieces, manage not to appear so dull.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A large part of their success relies on the fact that these iconic natural images are constructed out of man-made objects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yes, the idea is relatively simple, but the end product is not necessarily as intuitive as it is to construct a humanoid form out of the materials.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Walker Brothers at Next Space Gallery<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Once again I must tip my hat to the Next Space Gallery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the most unconventional galleries in the Crossroads that I’ve encountered, it is quickly becoming one of my favorite through its consistently offbeat style and presentation of work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This month the drawings of the Walker brothers (Luke, Spencer, Micah, and Austin) were displayed up in the front window of the gallery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The drawings, all done on copier paper, bear obvious style differences between the artists but all share the same energy of surrealistic portrayals of the subconscious combined with modern culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or in simpler terms, they are some really intricate, interesting doodles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjapDfIUeklQyKrSe_oQ4JLau2cpGXreR9FMhcHOinJoClhxZX9iXF43jHxxtk3hurVi0SvEjs0Ioz4yrW6iRKca9zdkYBMywL9RFHHOfPYVYgw2lYFktq83UkfcZ06Rb9s4bGlq5_2jcU/s1600/DSC_0019.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjapDfIUeklQyKrSe_oQ4JLau2cpGXreR9FMhcHOinJoClhxZX9iXF43jHxxtk3hurVi0SvEjs0Ioz4yrW6iRKca9zdkYBMywL9RFHHOfPYVYgw2lYFktq83UkfcZ06Rb9s4bGlq5_2jcU/s640/DSC_0019.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Walker brothers' show as it appears from the street</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Most of the drawings are densely packed with images and marks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some show recognizable icons like Big Bird and Mario amid a jumble of abstract imagery, with an erupting volcano in the background.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others rely on abstract patterning and mark making to create an interesting multi-dimensional mind space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The incredibly informal execution and presentation of the pieces doesn’t detract from the work at all, but actually enhances the raw talent contained in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are literally millions of people out in the world who make work similar to this and think of themselves as real artists but can’t make anything that’s even in the same ballpark as the Walker brothers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSgwZIZpGkdG-fURluh1pREOKp525JeVnF66qR1b0GPBr9XJBU6zJ-mRFqP1HyPd8Tt1552m7XSW9r-jUYM_7i1GU96CmyAId6HD9zD4D8E9v1RUYyeiKBdqMzF4dI5z5US_XobbBt5-Q/s1600/DSC_0023.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSgwZIZpGkdG-fURluh1pREOKp525JeVnF66qR1b0GPBr9XJBU6zJ-mRFqP1HyPd8Tt1552m7XSW9r-jUYM_7i1GU96CmyAId6HD9zD4D8E9v1RUYyeiKBdqMzF4dI5z5US_XobbBt5-Q/s400/DSC_0023.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Their drawings are on par with many other young emerging artists today that are gaining some success.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For example, their drawings are in similar vein of the work by Brooklyn artist <a href="http://www.wonderfair.com/">Ray Sohn currently on view atWonder Fair</a> in Lawrence, but the informality and naïve energy contained in the drawings is far more interesting than the stiff, formulaic “artiness” contained in Sohn’s show. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If given the proper opportunity, exposure, and direction, they could achieve a place between art world heavyweights like Michael Krueger and Tony Fitzpatrick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their work could really turn some heads by having the possibility of the four of them working collaboratively on larger, more sophisticated projects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is rare to find more than two artists who can work well together, and looking at these small doodles through the window panes I see a lot of potential in where it could go.<o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC9X-ARMXU_OWzf6hdy0J51WLuROLnvzPXL_bf1ATmG1KY216zVjsduMNQNFUYmesG01cuh0dcm2Yil7fzHH_sKTpHvALkQpTeRJQExKrWDri6dLGfSpZ_gvamrPu000yMrHherwPd9sA/s1600/DSC_0027.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC9X-ARMXU_OWzf6hdy0J51WLuROLnvzPXL_bf1ATmG1KY216zVjsduMNQNFUYmesG01cuh0dcm2Yil7fzHH_sKTpHvALkQpTeRJQExKrWDri6dLGfSpZ_gvamrPu000yMrHherwPd9sA/s400/DSC_0027.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The limit of that potential is determined by the brothers themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe they are perfectly content with their current status.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hell, I’ve scoured the Internet trying to find more information and can’t even find out who they are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m assuming that they are young amateur artists based on the appearance of their show, but for all I know they are already famous and working under aliases.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or maybe it is only one person working under the guise of four brothers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who knows?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This isn’t the first time I’ve been stymied trying to research someone I saw at the Next Space Gallery, and that’s another reason I’ve come to like the venue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems that the gallery attracts artists that are completely unknown: no websites, no press, sometimes no name accompanying the work (see my March review).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This makes visiting the gallery is a unique experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if you find the work on display underwhelming, in this digital age there is still a value in knowing that you are seeing something that does not exist outside of the gallery walls.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5epOjTiuZ3PQVkXWAQmBdGSsVH6LZb6qX2KZpPtX2HtqtxOEzTnpUOjr1VNOrtKqZlIkroCiYX0a7qeMQVEiWbsyQu048MmdySjNmONZ35GvQY7R-WizS3joebDM9JPnSXAyHg5B7X5E/s1600/DSC_0029.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5epOjTiuZ3PQVkXWAQmBdGSsVH6LZb6qX2KZpPtX2HtqtxOEzTnpUOjr1VNOrtKqZlIkroCiYX0a7qeMQVEiWbsyQu048MmdySjNmONZ35GvQY7R-WizS3joebDM9JPnSXAyHg5B7X5E/s640/DSC_0029.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Laura Kozak at Frontspace<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijdabk-5dYw2NGcHes1EuSRlzaOWD-rQ4-f-_HCIFkOk3TS4FbmHByuqgCYlh54PHqFcz1skaXD5OLSMhOsFZvzH1n-Zl1-zM_01tZ-1L-yq07bki4EoqTJKQusofNkr-leqIk9tdIZ4U/s1600/DSC_0062.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijdabk-5dYw2NGcHes1EuSRlzaOWD-rQ4-f-_HCIFkOk3TS4FbmHByuqgCYlh54PHqFcz1skaXD5OLSMhOsFZvzH1n-Zl1-zM_01tZ-1L-yq07bki4EoqTJKQusofNkr-leqIk9tdIZ4U/s320/DSC_0062.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kozak's photo of the Plum Tree in Lawrence, KS</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Laura Kozak’s show “re/lease” deals with a subject that is near and dear to my heart: abandoned buildings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In particular, her photographs feature empty retail spaces in strip malls and sites commonly seen lining four and six-lane avenues in suburbs across America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I began a similar photographic project last summer before once again being swept up in the funnel cloud of school, and in fact one of her photos featured the Plum Tree, an empty Chinese restaurant that I also photographed for my own project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> These scenes of abandoned commercial spaces are imbued with a haunting feel by contradicting our natural assumption regarding these sites.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We automatically regard places of business as being filled with people and activity because we only go to businesses that are open, and if they lack people and activity then they aren’t going to be around long.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We tend to pass by vacant spaces without paying them any attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An empty store is of no interest to a shopper, so they don’t really register in our minds as we drive by.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when forced to consider an empty store, the viewer is presented with a surreal scene with plenty to consider.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMpTp5phMsm-aN8YaY64KMosmd6Fm6qWMoQ3yYDxm5sGksvaL4GmYSHnU4S7kEKFGEzhToqh4E2dDmtgks6xOwUuuflfn9fsiWGixevPi1DcL0Wf9v5ua-6ZTc1MDC5IFgNZrnM7J24rE/s1600/DSC_0067.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMpTp5phMsm-aN8YaY64KMosmd6Fm6qWMoQ3yYDxm5sGksvaL4GmYSHnU4S7kEKFGEzhToqh4E2dDmtgks6xOwUuuflfn9fsiWGixevPi1DcL0Wf9v5ua-6ZTc1MDC5IFgNZrnM7J24rE/s320/DSC_0067.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Without occupants the store and parking lot become purposeless structures, causing the viewer to consider the space as a structure and environment similar to a large-scale art installation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One might begin to wonder what it means to cover such a large expanse of land with concrete or to erect such a large, minimalistic structure of glass, concrete, and steel, and suddenly something we commonly think of as normal becomes very abnormal.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> Unfortunately, Kozak’s photographs stop at the doorstep in terms of exploring the subject.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of her images show these places more or less as they would be seen from the street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not only is this the most simplistic way of approaching the subject, but I know I’ve seen several other photographers do the exact same thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What would make the show exponentially more interesting would be to physically explore the sites and highlight some of the details they contain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This would be more engaging for the viewer by presenting them with images of things that they ordinarily wouldn’t see on their own, and would also be more effective by exposing the latent energy and character held by abandoned sites.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKeCFBRU1uCJXULQzdNI1asWvQ33orNAaYE9I0eIs1mvI6wppPdciPRyqQAj_AHPKMsz17ErNpRATeFdiGEDMMd3YooCDvrNIH-z8pX6MpEU6qI51jxqFjIkyj1K0J041ooIXBKtT2t4o/s1600/DSC_0072.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKeCFBRU1uCJXULQzdNI1asWvQ33orNAaYE9I0eIs1mvI6wppPdciPRyqQAj_AHPKMsz17ErNpRATeFdiGEDMMd3YooCDvrNIH-z8pX6MpEU6qI51jxqFjIkyj1K0J041ooIXBKtT2t4o/s320/DSC_0072.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"> One idea might be taking a picture from the front door of the building facing toward the street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everyone has the opportunity to see the building as it appears from the street, but not many people will ever experience the view from this vantage point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Other opportunities arise if the building has been empty long enough there might be evidence of time taking its toll on the site.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Tall weeds might be growing out of cracks in the cement. Birds could take up residence in eaves and signs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Painted words and images could be peeling and fading.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are just a few ideas that could result in a more engaging collection of photographs, but the necessary element is having the desire to explore as an artist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>People like to be exposed to new things through viewing and experiencing art, and Kozak must be willing to take the next step and wander off the beaten path to find something interesting and new to present in her photographs. </span></div>mkuhlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04592066268729442981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8368113811145285959.post-75594687843591676262011-04-05T12:08:00.000-07:002011-04-05T12:27:26.329-07:00Islamic inspiration at the Belger...finding a Scarlett Garnet in the rough...why don't you take a picture? It'll last longer...previews of great expectations?...if it ain't metal then it ain't no good<div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> It looks like the warm weather is here to stay, and so are the crowds at First Fridays, sometimes to a detriment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s encouraging to see so many people make their way out for the event after months of desolate streets and mostly-empty galleries seen throughout the winter, but in some cases the crowds were so thick it kept me from seeing the art. At the Leedy-Voulkos the north room had new work up, but the lights were turned out and hundreds of people were packed into the space to see a man playing the electric violin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fun, but not what I’m after.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What I also found exciting about April 1<sup>st</sup> is that it was the first day of my new job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s refreshing to break out of a rut that I’ve been stuck in for several years at the same job and have work that I can put some soul into again, but it’s still in the restaurant business and as a result I was dog-tired before I even started my several mile hike around the Crossroads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I really had to work hard to bring the same energy to this month’s column, and I hope you appreciate it!</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Sanam Emami and Sarah Gross at the Belger Arts Center</span></b></div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTYV0YpsDmI8ivPR0yXM92gw89hkEz73-1KQqIZDDJHztrJSOfOmFt3hN7M902TH3lD3kU_620kTQivQ-Fy6N_QXnOEQonRIQ8xdgWJt-iDEGHXd5Yk4hRMeyvJWxxujFvNsySI0KeQ_U/s1600/DSC_0157.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="133" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTYV0YpsDmI8ivPR0yXM92gw89hkEz73-1KQqIZDDJHztrJSOfOmFt3hN7M902TH3lD3kU_620kTQivQ-Fy6N_QXnOEQonRIQ8xdgWJt-iDEGHXd5Yk4hRMeyvJWxxujFvNsySI0KeQ_U/s200/DSC_0157.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sarah Gross's piece titled "Bowl"</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One of the current shows at the Belger Arts Center, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Arabesques</i>, features the work of sculptor Sarah Gross and ceramicist Sanam Emami who share the trait of using Islamic culture as an inspiration in their work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The show’s statement reveals that both artists have been working in the Midwest for several years and makes no explicit claim that either of them has any direct connection to Islam, so I can only assume that they are both outsiders to the culture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This has the potential to create problems in the work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For someone to observe and take interest in a culture they are not a member of, there is the inherent risk of mischaracterizing the culture, such as improperly portraying elements or imagery from it, or at the very least creating a shallow “fan art” type of mimicry from not being knowledgeable enough about the subject.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, both artists skillfully avoid these pitfalls and produce some very interesting pieces.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Sarah Gross</span></i></div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-IYsZu-0tfV0fo1wCClHg5FORzBLzblF-ub9GcMjeFcyy0Bf2mV10oLjAmB5KExqoEchUDKZqq3tO23b0SI9LqlqzCf5lI2vhpcKnWKDj6BSyK-M7zPKMmVlwmoAC3O0t4Oa20u0-Xr4/s1600/DSC_0158.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-IYsZu-0tfV0fo1wCClHg5FORzBLzblF-ub9GcMjeFcyy0Bf2mV10oLjAmB5KExqoEchUDKZqq3tO23b0SI9LqlqzCf5lI2vhpcKnWKDj6BSyK-M7zPKMmVlwmoAC3O0t4Oa20u0-Xr4/s320/DSC_0158.JPG" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another of Sarah Gross's smaller works</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>All of Sarah Gross’s pieces on display borrow the clover-shaped pattern found in the windows of Islamic buildings and apply it to different forms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On several pedestals are smaller pieces that are generally less than two feet in any dimension.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One of the pieces, titled “Bowl” is actually formed in the shape of a bowl but the functionality of the object is removed by the large openings carved into the slab.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is perhaps the most successful of the smaller pieces because it takes a familiar from with many traditional, cross-cultural connotations and transforms it into a purely aesthetic object based on her interest in Islamic patterning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By removing the bowl’s function, the viewer is forced to consider the cultural meaning in the object, and it is a very successful work.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The other small pieces do not hold the same intrigue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Based on the same structure of a flat slab with the pattern cut into it, they do not resemble any recognizable objects, and feel like they are small fragments of something larger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is possible they are intended to resemble archaeological finds, which they do very well, but it’s hard to view them as anything more than what they are: a slab of material with a pattern carved into it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These pieces would be more interesting if they were treated in a more three-dimensional way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">One option for improving these pieces could be to construct the form out of more than one slab and create a multiple-planed structure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This would open up the option of creating a more unique, complex form than is currently shown. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another option could be to do more additional, intricate pattern carving into the surface of the existing forms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The shapes in the pieces are doing some interesting things, but by themselves are very simple.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Islamic art is all about dense, intricate patterning, and such small, simple forms would benefit from additional carving into the surface to make them something more than what they are currently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicLHT8okHxAUjEuFpWWCG_a_SVhPSFlKCysnT1Co6s4pg-WqaohPtIk5blHe6of6h7eBPWMCL05IzZ-ar0G-_deZkaahAILPluVT5PJI-qFDrI09FyhDxgtTRshUFugj69eT5Qv5EwG04/s1600/DSC_0154.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicLHT8okHxAUjEuFpWWCG_a_SVhPSFlKCysnT1Co6s4pg-WqaohPtIk5blHe6of6h7eBPWMCL05IzZ-ar0G-_deZkaahAILPluVT5PJI-qFDrI09FyhDxgtTRshUFugj69eT5Qv5EwG04/s320/DSC_0154.JPG" width="212" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A detail of the wall piece</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A major factor that causes most of the smaller pieces to suffer is that they are completely overpowered by the main attraction of Gross’s exhibition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the gallery she arranged an s-shaped wall that is roughly 7 feet high, composed of many gently curved slabs that have been carved out similarly to the smaller pieces in the show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This installation is a fantastic, fully actualized version of what is seen in the smaller pieces of the show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each piece in the wall is unique in its texture and pattern, and all placed together the result brings to mind a honeycomb or a worm-eaten log, or even a wall in a cave, and creates a texture-rich object that your eyes are dying to explore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What makes the piece especially effective is that its presence goes beyond being simply an object and borders on becoming a complete environment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The height of the wall is much taller than anyone not classified as a giant, and because of its size the simple s-curve created by the wall is enough to create a visually dynamic space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One can enter a space almost fully encircled by the wall for an up-close encounter with the work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a remarkable execution that produces something very thought provoking out of a relatively simple idea.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyqZVq6nTW3vjGn3yI5rcQy8c3riluw5oQshehLdnA9s2l_rRZZeXArbHz13LnNMbH5g6oLPHPY8DLnONTpRb8VdLER2SFfj0JtxtIf-9Tok4j95oYfYl9LU8c9pHq3wXpO_y6DpoCvj4/s1600/DSC_0152.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyqZVq6nTW3vjGn3yI5rcQy8c3riluw5oQshehLdnA9s2l_rRZZeXArbHz13LnNMbH5g6oLPHPY8DLnONTpRb8VdLER2SFfj0JtxtIf-9Tok4j95oYfYl9LU8c9pHq3wXpO_y6DpoCvj4/s400/DSC_0152.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Sanam Emami</span></i></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqYg_K2g-jCdh64_XqHlM6JHiS278TeRswNYpQcCiuakxpNI8tfPhbTE_bIycZvQM3rigA7WrqI-Lr49xVaxCK6G8ze2qvmQR8XdejCtdh9cUJ0BSVJwV1Xn2wzhfBc3BjAwo-QAWTvbI/s1600/DSC_0161.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqYg_K2g-jCdh64_XqHlM6JHiS278TeRswNYpQcCiuakxpNI8tfPhbTE_bIycZvQM3rigA7WrqI-Lr49xVaxCK6G8ze2qvmQR8XdejCtdh9cUJ0BSVJwV1Xn2wzhfBc3BjAwo-QAWTvbI/s320/DSC_0161.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Three pieces on display in Emami's exhibit</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Sanam Emami’s work is much more subtle than Gross’s work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If the viewer were to have a momentary lapse in attentiveness they may pass Emami’s work seeing nothing more than a cup or a pitcher, but they would really be missing out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of her pieces are functional – pitchers, cups, plates, and platters – and these items are easy to overlook in the context of art because the common modern tendency is to own mass produced versions of these items.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are so used to seeing perfectly machined plates and cups that we don’t find them to be particularly impressive forms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But anyone who has actually tried to produce ceramics by hand knows how hard it is to make a plate or a cup that doesn’t turn out a lumpy, misshapen, fingerprint covered mess.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Emami’s pieces look flawless, and that ability is something to truly be admired.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFlxc8HjfnCm_P5hzsk4pUZBjfQl4DJWhjJgCoFlyiz23wkmrk1QU7Zm8NCDtYiHd5XTkQNwAtamSRn_mq7_fHopS9DcSgP_osb23NJAFtdCRNZpwq9MVXPNIDTIloGiiKZOILKT35AcY/s1600/DSC_0160.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFlxc8HjfnCm_P5hzsk4pUZBjfQl4DJWhjJgCoFlyiz23wkmrk1QU7Zm8NCDtYiHd5XTkQNwAtamSRn_mq7_fHopS9DcSgP_osb23NJAFtdCRNZpwq9MVXPNIDTIloGiiKZOILKT35AcY/s320/DSC_0160.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A detail of Emami's platter piece</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What makes the pieces exceptional is the subtle hints of textured patterns combined with very graphic, modern looking design work that references traditional Islamic imagery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In particular I enjoy the faintly-impressed pattern work on one platter because it is almost too shallow an impression to be seen, but it is made visible by the glaze gathered at the shallow lip of the shape.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It had to take an incredibly delicate touch to create that surface design, and to repeat the same image over and over with consistency is amazing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Some of the only non-functional works in her exhibit are two series of eight tiles arranged into grids with ornate imagery painted on them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One might be tempted to describe these as “decorative,” but I’m reluctant to take it there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Too much thought and originality is present in the designs painted on the tiles for me to treat them that dismissively.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I knew more about ceramics I might be able to comment further on the show, but I’ll just leave it by saying that anyone who values good craft and precision will enjoy Emami’s work.</span></div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmk3iU_AF95ePlhbsV2I8PcG7xJABn8R9gV4tQDPDq648lvk-v_BxKvT6HjWjBZkC2m262kChZ3kIeZJSQQBXQETGgQIm5wO60wePf7JqIk-V1tuApIMAetMAQeHr-wgjzjm5fYxUO634/s1600/DSC_0163.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmk3iU_AF95ePlhbsV2I8PcG7xJABn8R9gV4tQDPDq648lvk-v_BxKvT6HjWjBZkC2m262kChZ3kIeZJSQQBXQETGgQIm5wO60wePf7JqIk-V1tuApIMAetMAQeHr-wgjzjm5fYxUO634/s400/DSC_0163.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The white set of tiles seen in Emami's show</td></tr>
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Evan Ashby at The Scarlett Garnet</span></b></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw9plGzBjsFOIfZBJqQtmoobSe3ifMwzTiH8ltNZ7BNcsLh2r59Za8WVIKgo4cPnlsz9QCxwDYnm6iH7MztFlecOcF-2mN1cTcCHMXBtlRXT666CqGIDWKliWLSkFf_3C-NOGTMbkF-bo/s1600/DSC_0174.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw9plGzBjsFOIfZBJqQtmoobSe3ifMwzTiH8ltNZ7BNcsLh2r59Za8WVIKgo4cPnlsz9QCxwDYnm6iH7MztFlecOcF-2mN1cTcCHMXBtlRXT666CqGIDWKliWLSkFf_3C-NOGTMbkF-bo/s320/DSC_0174.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of Ashby's inkjet photo on wood works</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’m not positive that Evan Ashby’s show was actually hosted at The Scarlett Garnet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Facing 18<sup>th</sup> Street on the building is a garage door painted with black and white cow splotches that opens up to several interconnected rooms, which if you venture back far enough reaches The Scarlett Garnet, so until I’m informed otherwise that’s what this space is called.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is an area that is typically filled with several different vendors and mobs of people on any given First Friday, and the art is usually under the bar as far as being particularly impressive. But this month the photos of Evan Ashby caught my eye for their clever use of materials.</span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYLy772htDwfOqXvXrRXLvD_VYgMBiMP6FmBbz0Oan-dZBoYY_YpqfZRKgWITW4ayFF6yhlpPjU0AXgBvEJXeOyWex6bODkJJXFaVmwrxwaURfyXaTieLY5HAjYUCTQuD7MEYhRUxWK8Y/s1600/DSC_0177.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYLy772htDwfOqXvXrRXLvD_VYgMBiMP6FmBbz0Oan-dZBoYY_YpqfZRKgWITW4ayFF6yhlpPjU0AXgBvEJXeOyWex6bODkJJXFaVmwrxwaURfyXaTieLY5HAjYUCTQuD7MEYhRUxWK8Y/s320/DSC_0177.JPG" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In inkjet process colors, white is not printed,<br />
which allows the grain of the wood to show<br />
through in these works</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>All things considered, Ashby’s show is centered on a gimmick, but it is a very effective gimmick that I have never seen before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his statement he describes how the pieces are made by printing inkjet photographs onto wood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inkjet prints use process colors, which rely on the white of the paper to create realistic looking images.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when you print process colors on a different background it allows that new surface to become part of the image.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this case the white has been replaced by wood grain, and the result is a set of very interesting photographs made out of what would otherwise probably be a set of dull photographs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Most of the photographs are of buildings, and the combination of geometric, man-made structures in contrast with the natural waves of the wood is perfect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a striking juxtaposition of two different aesthetics which end up harmonizing, and it creates an eye-grabbing piece that you can’t look away from.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The color of the wood treats the photos very nicely by giving them a creamy, off-white look that adds to the character of the structures, and the contrast of the image against the natural wood pattern borders on Surrealism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But the gem of the show doesn’t have any buildings in it at all.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead Ashby creates a panoramic view of a forest on the boards by suspending them in a half-square configuration so the viewer can stand in the middle and have their vision surrounded by the scene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The trees have an abstract quality from being separated from each other on thin vertical boards, and the viewer finds themselves immersed in an experience of pure shape and texture.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQtnQm-0HKBKND2gCktca3NCHg4ZPX0ZvDCObkj_tJiFkYNuBiSP-eVmFTysqdPe_zSQqRuFRdu8TVxK3vDZ1MU00crPwEXXNSIWhDYDFRNqd69v03pFYk3rlcK9lL4ZfiVSnHyg5GwQs/s1600/DSC_0173.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQtnQm-0HKBKND2gCktca3NCHg4ZPX0ZvDCObkj_tJiFkYNuBiSP-eVmFTysqdPe_zSQqRuFRdu8TVxK3vDZ1MU00crPwEXXNSIWhDYDFRNqd69v03pFYk3rlcK9lL4ZfiVSnHyg5GwQs/s400/DSC_0173.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The show does contain a couple of dud images.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The smallest pieces, measuring maybe 6’ by 6’, show arrangements of unidentifiable objects inside and have the appearance of experiments that didn’t work out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are too small and densely packed with photographic imagery to clearly discern either the wood texture or the elements of the photograph.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What makes the larger pieces work so well is the open space where the wood is a dominant part of the image, and these smaller works lack that element.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fortunately Ashby put his effort into the right areas and these small pieces are not a distraction from the rest of the show.</span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFKGP9-gzay6QC_f2hvSZdRnujBDQL76CHTQ5ISg7hGtNH6KlcQ_iIkTpsdxmim4Cua2nzo-9BRFOKJ5spLc6xHRmHwKigYuSe_Wcz-NxQCzzsvlavSQAIJsobBMFWD9rLqYQD5p_8QsQ/s1600/DSC_0180.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFKGP9-gzay6QC_f2hvSZdRnujBDQL76CHTQ5ISg7hGtNH6KlcQ_iIkTpsdxmim4Cua2nzo-9BRFOKJ5spLc6xHRmHwKigYuSe_Wcz-NxQCzzsvlavSQAIJsobBMFWD9rLqYQD5p_8QsQ/s400/DSC_0180.JPG" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I was also slightly hesitant to accept Ashby’s choice of buildings to photograph.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is common in Kansas City to see art containing iconic buildings from the area, and one of the larger prints is a photo of the nearby Tension Envelopes building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ordinarily including such recognizable imagery from a city will come off as cliché.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like the use of the wood grain, depicting iconic places without a meaningful commentary or context is a gimmick, but in this case I decided that like the wood grain I was ok with it – provided it is only done this once.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The location of this show certainly influenced my opinion in a positive way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m usually not expecting to find anything overly-impressive in this space, and this show by far exceeded my expectations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If I viewed this same work in a highly reputable gallery I would probably feel very different about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In my experience of viewing the work this time, where the gimmick of the wood grain is still brand new to me, I enjoy it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the thing with gimmicks is they have no shelf-life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Printing buildings on wood is a quick and simple trick to come up with a nice looking picture, but it’s not the kind of thing you can build a career, or even a second show, on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope that Ashby resists the temptation to settle for the ooh’s and ahh’s the work receives from people seeing it for the first time and continues to push and develop his ideas, because I think his work at this point shows a lot of potential and it would be a shame to see it stop at this point. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Chadrick Devin at Plenum Space</span></b></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAkgCLN8udiEbfekozMo8i7djP5Z534Uvquu5syMg6nuvt_FU7NFpFEE009hew0q9aoXzmG17ionmgckTR9inM5Ar6K03CalvLSfD5kw6N84QHPvuNCkyZPdJ794ZAHMhWeMj_RwnqeYY/s1600/DSC_0183.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAkgCLN8udiEbfekozMo8i7djP5Z534Uvquu5syMg6nuvt_FU7NFpFEE009hew0q9aoXzmG17ionmgckTR9inM5Ar6K03CalvLSfD5kw6N84QHPvuNCkyZPdJ794ZAHMhWeMj_RwnqeYY/s320/DSC_0183.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of the photographs by Chadrick Devin on display at<br />
the Plenum Space gallery</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Apparently the Plenum Space Gallery is developing as a photo hub of the Crossroads, because I can’t remember the last time I saw a show there that wasn’t predominantly photographs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Photography can be difficult as an artistic medium because it takes an immense amount of imagination and skill to create something visually interesting to a viewer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This difficulty is compounded by the fact that photography is relatively easy, so just about anyone that fancies themselves as having a creative eye can take their digital camera down to Kinko’s, run off oversize prints of some mundane snapshots, tack them to a gallery wall, and call it an art show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also, as is the case with most artistic media, the quick and easy methods of creating a photograph of some interest have all been beat to death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, photography suffers more from this because without the artist’s hand physically in the work it is easy to resemble someone else’s work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyone who has seen art photography knows at least a few stereotypical categories within photography, and Chadrick Devin’s photos fit into a few of them.</span></div> <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF3pPJeucr4JzibFzxuIkqGhjpf95It430Bx7jZcT86IB3r0LDKJPgCzzZJmiigVdMWF6-E2qeSrJLs9iORyZT4JEPtVfOm-mdW-wzp_rtc2kUnYZ5wtzqTj70J6hXpuK2r5-E5y-qLeE/s1600/DSC_0187.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF3pPJeucr4JzibFzxuIkqGhjpf95It430Bx7jZcT86IB3r0LDKJPgCzzZJmiigVdMWF6-E2qeSrJLs9iORyZT4JEPtVfOm-mdW-wzp_rtc2kUnYZ5wtzqTj70J6hXpuK2r5-E5y-qLeE/s320/DSC_0187.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The million dollar question: If this was in color, would it be as arty?</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The first category they fit into is the “shoot-everything-in-black-and-white-with-dramatic-lighting-because-that-makes-everything-look-arty” category.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know how sometimes characters in TV shows will attend a gallery show?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well if they attend a photography opening chances are they would use prop photos of this genre.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is the 4/4 beat of photography.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just because this set of devices are used doesn’t mean the photos are completely lost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is the chance that an interesting image can still be arranged within this motif, but Devin doesn’t do this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, he commits the cardinal sin of having a close-up of a person staring intensely at the viewer in an attempt to mimic something that portrays hidden emotions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg43gRCt5bgAnAvbbt3Qdydul1BxhfXZCLNMc_Sx5LUeCwvar_TrAipwyuB4hC73Zf_aTByeGIIEQgTPzVEafeuucrrQPDpwCMMQOE9pAYAZVSmol2FsIkMRVTcESrwKagtNg_xvmmJUQw/s1600/DSC_0185.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg43gRCt5bgAnAvbbt3Qdydul1BxhfXZCLNMc_Sx5LUeCwvar_TrAipwyuB4hC73Zf_aTByeGIIEQgTPzVEafeuucrrQPDpwCMMQOE9pAYAZVSmol2FsIkMRVTcESrwKagtNg_xvmmJUQw/s320/DSC_0185.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I can look straight through your soul with a pouty expression</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The second category Devin’s photos fit into is “print-everything-big-because-that-makes-it-seem-more-impressive-and-therefore-important.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of the prints in the show had to be at least 30”x40” or larger, and while it was fairly obvious this was meant to make the images more confrontational, this effect was not achieved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The key to any image is getting people to pay attention to it, and if you can see a picture from across the street and already tell you’re not interested, you’re going to turn the other direction and ignore it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if you are in a gallery and see a photo the size of a postage stamp, you can bet you’re going to be up there with a magnifying glass trying to figure out what’s in that picture and why it’s so small.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Presentation is about inviting the viewer to look at your work, and presenting everything in the same large format is the equivalent of ending every sentence with an exclamation point.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After a few times the emphasis added by the exclamation wears off and is meaningless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkjR-p-lrAWGLiaAZ72dxS4WbzJPvjN78ltM3NUo-piKr5eAnSPFPgQSGLVgG002Ph0YL6CkcDnqCjpxrRBzfcbnaAK2FhHb8-2gz9llXFzz17aUnVFJoXLkWLD3_ya4fDxtSkgUmriBs/s1600/DSC_0188.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkjR-p-lrAWGLiaAZ72dxS4WbzJPvjN78ltM3NUo-piKr5eAnSPFPgQSGLVgG002Ph0YL6CkcDnqCjpxrRBzfcbnaAK2FhHb8-2gz9llXFzz17aUnVFJoXLkWLD3_ya4fDxtSkgUmriBs/s320/DSC_0188.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And a third category for the photos is “nudity-is-great-imagery-because-it-shocks-people-but-it-also-makes-some-deep-complex-statements-about-human-nature.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is apparent just from looking at the photos and seeing static poses of nude men standing around, and it is confirmed from reading Devin’s statement for the show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Through these photographs he is attempting to question societal stereotypes about masculinity and what it means to be a male, particularly in the context of homosexuality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to achieve this, the figures must be contextualized in a way that truly poses a question.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Photographing two men crossing swords doesn’t inspire the viewer to think anything deeper than “two cocks.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps if the figures could be seen doing something else as they press their crotches together, like sharing an ironing board, then the viewer might feel compelled to dwell on the image.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if all you give the viewer is two cocks, that’s all they’re going to take away from it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And simply showing a nude man is not questioning masculinity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unless he’s doing something that piques the viewer’s interest, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>it’s just a picture of a guy with no clothes on.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Michael Baxley and Derrick Breidenthal at MLB Designs</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>During my trek through the Crossroads I noticed that a lot of people seemed to be entering and exiting the building formerly occupied by the Byron C. Cohen gallery, and decided to stop in and see what was happening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apparently the new occupant of the space is MLB (major league baseball?) Designs, and inside was a loose collection of several smaller shows by different artists along with a handful of vendors selling wares toward the back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of the art on the walls I recognized from earlier visits when the Byron C. Cohen Gallery was still there… so I’m not really sure what’s happening with the space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there was some work by a couple of artists that I thought were worth sharing, so let’s take a quick look at them.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Michael Baxley</span></i></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYk-rgHgnX3eEX953w0fSOfoFtCwDNRyesGpWeOs1qxms9g1n7m41Akj4wd97pioXhwd02bAQ4_vTgTNUWndn5bgBhcoxJrZLPFCok9A5q7vZvtYPX-gk9NM7TvNTOabp8EOimyrQBS-Y/s1600/DSC_0211.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYk-rgHgnX3eEX953w0fSOfoFtCwDNRyesGpWeOs1qxms9g1n7m41Akj4wd97pioXhwd02bAQ4_vTgTNUWndn5bgBhcoxJrZLPFCok9A5q7vZvtYPX-gk9NM7TvNTOabp8EOimyrQBS-Y/s320/DSC_0211.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The ceramic flowers in these works are an inventive change of<br />
pace from the typical painting</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Michael Baxley is a painter who apparently got tired of the same old brush-and-canvas act, so he decided to embellish his paintings with small ceramic flowers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve seen plenty of works that incorporate three-dimensional objects into a two-dimensional image, but usually those tend to be found objects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These flowers were different because they appeared to be made specifically for the purpose of accompanying these works, and they achieve a very nice effect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMzrTRRQw12QfDMozN7py1IXGqOWnlegtjE99x_0MvIYlzwyZJCEU8bvedMJnKRrUSARKoOeHzunvriOehZw_cwPdlDRPNA2OHjJSt_yh4ecrESdXYiI7-j6GYDx1hTk1McD3zaNwdlrE/s1600/DSC_0218.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMzrTRRQw12QfDMozN7py1IXGqOWnlegtjE99x_0MvIYlzwyZJCEU8bvedMJnKRrUSARKoOeHzunvriOehZw_cwPdlDRPNA2OHjJSt_yh4ecrESdXYiI7-j6GYDx1hTk1McD3zaNwdlrE/s320/DSC_0218.JPG" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An arrangement of the ceramic flowers<br />
can also be seen on the floor here</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A few of the pieces start slipping toward the point of becoming formulaic in the use of the flowers, but for the most part Baxley includes a good amount of variation in the size of the flowers and their arrangements to make each piece visually interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And as an embellishment he took the flowers a bit further and arranged several dozen of them across the floor near the entrance to his show, nicely complementing the title of the show, “Scattered.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t want to spend too much time going on about Baxley’s work at this point in time because the show feels very small, as if there’s more to his work that was not available for display.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are some nice things happening with the use of pattern, imagery, color choice, and variation in his work, so I’ll wait to comment extensively on Baxley’s work until a later date when hopefully I can see a more complete representation of his work.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Derrick Breidenthal</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Much like Michael Baxley, Derrick Breidenthal had a very small show on display with maybe seven pieces total.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the paintings stood out to me among everything that was happening in the space and I thought they were worth at least mentioning.</span></div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIw92aROZH_obJxagkxY-Xj-kxzok2q9EylBntgpIrKJ0QaqSbBmTUptoUNO102u6kzgnd2AVz7TbcOymKhRGX9NrAOWGR5-xtu1kMqlYX8TZVGypFbR9R6hnK0Z1X9lQJepFjriWrU0c/s1600/DSC_0220.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIw92aROZH_obJxagkxY-Xj-kxzok2q9EylBntgpIrKJ0QaqSbBmTUptoUNO102u6kzgnd2AVz7TbcOymKhRGX9NrAOWGR5-xtu1kMqlYX8TZVGypFbR9R6hnK0Z1X9lQJepFjriWrU0c/s320/DSC_0220.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Breidenthal's small paintings are reminiscent of some great<br />
abstract paintings fromt the turn of the 20th Century</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Most of his paintings are about 5”x&7”, and the two biggest ones can’t measure much more than 10”x10”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet despite their small area, Breidenthal is able to densely pack information into the space and create a painting that is worth looking at for several minutes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of them achieve this effect through complexity: thick, raised brush strokes of white combined with spatters of dark blue and yellow create a complex image, and the small scale invites you to fully explore the space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Others achieve it through simplicity: a nearly blank, description-less sky and ground sharply contrast the two tiny orange flag-like things on the horizon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are so different they grab our attention, but they are so small we can’t easily figure out what the image is of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So we stop and we think about it, which in almost any art is really the ultimate goal to achieve.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinkz2DJE54LGfR19hf3JqluKChbVs7ByIMErWRb9w2nvx2HJt3OZNjfetR3n9Ag_-0TiKO3w1nIqxy3RXM5r2fnIercrjyoSNotKL_xIpO8ePND0dQeToxfq-aCVPF5XtKee3NLeAaZPI/s1600/DSC_0229.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinkz2DJE54LGfR19hf3JqluKChbVs7ByIMErWRb9w2nvx2HJt3OZNjfetR3n9Ag_-0TiKO3w1nIqxy3RXM5r2fnIercrjyoSNotKL_xIpO8ePND0dQeToxfq-aCVPF5XtKee3NLeAaZPI/s320/DSC_0229.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A detail from one of Breidenthal's 5x7 paintings</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What makes Breidenthal’s painting’s so good is that even though they are small and simple, he has a knack for activating the entire space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This means that he doesn’t paint any areas in the works that are truly blank.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If he painted the whole canvas the same color of white he would be able to draw interest to certain areas by creating a different texture with the brush strokes, or through some other trick.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is evidence of this all over his works.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He doesn’t put paint down the first time and call it good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is clear that he works back into all areas of the piece until they are fully incorporated with the rest of the space, which is why even though the paintings are small, they carry a lot of weight for their size.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Dennis McNett on 18<sup>th</sup> Street between Baltimore and Wyandotte- BEST IN SHOW</span></b></div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbKtW5iwmvazj-5sjtq37NPs2FC6d6d0ZDDXiwfIAYmQdFEaqpTV_Cul3FhtFGggRU6_dZpZZwRJ7F9y5KcZpqkLzadjKXtBWmMBSRSho-3-7klktIakzMNm1t4IX4hJV-DhanpYUY3d0/s1600/DSC_0139.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbKtW5iwmvazj-5sjtq37NPs2FC6d6d0ZDDXiwfIAYmQdFEaqpTV_Cul3FhtFGggRU6_dZpZZwRJ7F9y5KcZpqkLzadjKXtBWmMBSRSho-3-7klktIakzMNm1t4IX4hJV-DhanpYUY3d0/s320/DSC_0139.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> A look at the Wolfbat War Vessel before it rolls into action</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There isn’t a whole lot to say about Dennis McNett’s performance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One look at pictures from the event tells you the whole story, and it is a brilliant one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A metal band playing on board a Wolfbat War Vessel, while the Wolfbats dressed in their ceremonial hats and carrying oversized battle axes and pitchforks slay two alien piñatas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then the entire group moves off down the road toward the site of McNett’s gallery show at the Escapist, the metal band continuing to play as the War Vessel rolls down the street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I didn’t get a chance to see McNett’s actual show, but it doesn’t really matter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The performance portion was strong enough to stand on its own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wrote something once about artists in the digital age needing to find a way of incorporating experience into their work, that it was essential that they provide the viewer with a real reason to go see the work in person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I can’t think of a more effective reason than this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrOOCSwzjjqiZSVAxFyUC3okzvPMNShxq-yhC33gwlyWRseCC0ZKbRMDcZUB_lNKS8JUlJka7RXo-KOOzVxH7VPug6Ghjj238BJRV_Z63JTjkwbR8d6XuwwAWpRDHlXH6z7qb8TMjP_GU/s1600/DSC_0192.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrOOCSwzjjqiZSVAxFyUC3okzvPMNShxq-yhC33gwlyWRseCC0ZKbRMDcZUB_lNKS8JUlJka7RXo-KOOzVxH7VPug6Ghjj238BJRV_Z63JTjkwbR8d6XuwwAWpRDHlXH6z7qb8TMjP_GU/s400/DSC_0192.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A view during the melee of alien slaying</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So many people were gathered around the performance in front of the Arts Incubator that some poor sucker trying to drive down the street was stuck there for a good ten minutes waiting for the crowd to clear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The people weren’t being rude, there was simply nowhere to go to get out of the way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I think that even if someone wasn’t really interested in the metal/slaughter going on, they couldn’t help but be entertained by witnessing the spectacle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s very bizarre and memorable, something you will never see again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That and all the pieces worn by the Wolfbats (members of the performance) were individually interesting pieces of art, and definitely memorable to anybody.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">What made the performance particularly good is that it’s a direct extension of McNett’s two-dimensional work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not like he was a figure painter who decided to do something wacky for attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The whole thing was so well put together because it was a genuine part of his gallery show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And for those of you who aren’t familiar with McNett’s work I encourage you to visit his website, link provided below.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not often that I would review, much less promote an artist of McNett’s caliber, but if I witnessed a war party of Wolfbats marching through the crossroads and didn’t mention anything about it, I would be failing in my duty to try and find the best work I can discuss for your consideration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You’re welcome!</span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">You can visit Dennis McNett’s site <a href="http://www.howlingprint.com/">here</a>.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtoKmFgi96R0DoZqYi9KtZ8Vpa3PpQr2vL_yNDuAntYj8CyilQjBF1RlUA3LFpvQADx0eM6ThMVRHmm01KxUlKjwxPOLOi739-yJhUGlQ8WH6jqCpe3WgSS5qDzhtpXpkjBHa7t6BJiWw/s1600/DSC_0144.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtoKmFgi96R0DoZqYi9KtZ8Vpa3PpQr2vL_yNDuAntYj8CyilQjBF1RlUA3LFpvQADx0eM6ThMVRHmm01KxUlKjwxPOLOi739-yJhUGlQ8WH6jqCpe3WgSS5qDzhtpXpkjBHa7t6BJiWw/s640/DSC_0144.JPG" width="428" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The alien pinatas to be unwittingly slain during the performance</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0dNo9K7kZsrTCKY60PNkn4JSEWfECbPesD6OEnLuC1IMO-LBsghATf4A6Ph7ZC1wvtHaqO69jXb3jOA3Uh5c5d7eEwY6S3Lz19vUziSPmFwg1E1nSE_29rxbI4uugULxvcV1DR9h8WpE/s1600/DSC_0202.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="427" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0dNo9K7kZsrTCKY60PNkn4JSEWfECbPesD6OEnLuC1IMO-LBsghATf4A6Ph7ZC1wvtHaqO69jXb3jOA3Uh5c5d7eEwY6S3Lz19vUziSPmFwg1E1nSE_29rxbI4uugULxvcV1DR9h8WpE/s640/DSC_0202.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A look at the action from safely inside the Arts Incubator</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHLJh5IvCk4CXl96mUH910Z1CS76_ZS0IRKDR6eoxYd5VeT7uum-9P5wq48rpUP6OWqKldkWfGzOshgTCkjVNK1LQPB_1mVQXFTL8QbHGc1y9RdDvXkoESNYiYT9m2LEBmzcgYacBc2YI/s1600/DSC_0205.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHLJh5IvCk4CXl96mUH910Z1CS76_ZS0IRKDR6eoxYd5VeT7uum-9P5wq48rpUP6OWqKldkWfGzOshgTCkjVNK1LQPB_1mVQXFTL8QbHGc1y9RdDvXkoESNYiYT9m2LEBmzcgYacBc2YI/s640/DSC_0205.JPG" width="428" /></a></div>mkuhlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04592066268729442981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8368113811145285959.post-79480559782551893532011-03-07T14:02:00.000-08:002011-03-07T14:04:26.465-08:00Under pressure...maybe once was enough...did I just see what I think I saw?...Statom & Smith can be contenders if they keep it real...Mahinay moves across dimensions...it's brilliant! But who made it?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> At long last First Fridays is back in full swing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The crowds have yet to return, but most of the venues have once again opened their doors with new work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And March is an exciting month in itself, but that has more to do with basketball.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, I’m watching a game while typing this, so please excuse me if I interje – WHAT?!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>HOW WAS THAT NOT A FOUL?!!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>CMON!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sorry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also I should add that I’ve been trying to quit smoking lately, so my moods have been a little off-kilter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This month’s writings may be a little more rambling and bite than in the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Anyways, let’s jump into the First Friday offerings of March.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Jenny Meyer-McCall and Holly Swangstu at the Beggar’s Table</span></b></div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFTO3TNHkjrzN0O6o1gd40G-HcUJ6BcIafGD6cc66udJcY4BwHPr33luk2VErQuq8swPNw_hGICURBkkfH4QFtyG7gMWecCSgTgtXB_8j9Umup-c5OX9hIWOK14m4INt5kfq1IF6no4dI/s1600/DSC_0039.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFTO3TNHkjrzN0O6o1gd40G-HcUJ6BcIafGD6cc66udJcY4BwHPr33luk2VErQuq8swPNw_hGICURBkkfH4QFtyG7gMWecCSgTgtXB_8j9Umup-c5OX9hIWOK14m4INt5kfq1IF6no4dI/s320/DSC_0039.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two panels painted by Jenny Meyer-McCall</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>All the way back in September, I reviewed some work by Jenny Meyer-McCall at the Leedy-Voulkos for my very first entry in this blog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That particular show was a group exhibit, and since then I have avoided reviewing group shows because is allowed to show so few pieces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I recall, Meyer-McCall had one large multi-panel installation along with three or four other individual pieces, and I was attracted to her inventive and experimental painting techniques.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, my interest in her work was significantly lower this time around.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>However, the context in which I saw her work must be considered in this impression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a natural phenomenon that seeing both the artist’s works together can influence the perception of it, much like the same color swatch can be perceived as a different color when placed against different backgrounds.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two actually use alternate placement of their pieces to create an even presentation of both their works, so really in reviewing the work it is an impression of the presentation as a whole.</span></div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibiQO3LQ6saYWagDAWxRPu55PA9CUPpfXiOu4OmokyXGSlLAbh80GytoqUqGQ3mQeiu_YEy9EwUFtNmBEVjS1zzoEd0BfnuJLdtPotQXy1VFBRrmxkCm4kXrXImEC26mOyGuM1RIIsFPc/s1600/DSC_0038.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibiQO3LQ6saYWagDAWxRPu55PA9CUPpfXiOu4OmokyXGSlLAbh80GytoqUqGQ3mQeiu_YEy9EwUFtNmBEVjS1zzoEd0BfnuJLdtPotQXy1VFBRrmxkCm4kXrXImEC26mOyGuM1RIIsFPc/s320/DSC_0038.JPG" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">One of Holly Swanstu's nearly identical<br />
pieces</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I have never encountered the work of Holly Stangstu before, but it seemed to make sense why these two artists decided to have a show together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They both work in roughly the same sizes, their works both have similar color palettes, and they are both fixated on using a single device within their work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Swangstu is more guilty than Meyer-McCall in this arena, with all of her works being strips of fabric arranged on a canvas to form parallel stripes of color.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This description is accurate for all Swangstu’s pieces, the only thing that changes between each one is the size of the canvas, the color of the fabric, and whether the stripes are layered horizontally or vertically.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">By itself this is an interesting idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not an interesting enough idea to carry a whole piece, much less a whole show, by itself. The pattern that these stripes of fabric create is a great effect that has a lot of potential, but it needs to be used in conjunction with other devices in order to fulfill that potential.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The obvious solution would be to paint or draw on top of this striped surface, it would look nice to have it as a background that emerged and interacted with some foreground imagery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is also the option of further sewing on the piece and creating a more complex piece that way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or one of Swangstu’s pieces in specific shows some potential by creating a composition through the whole piece by arranging the fabrics so that larger shapes are created by the colors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the arrangements feel totally random, but in this piece it feels as if there is a purpose to how the fabric is placed, and small touches like that are things that can elevate the work to a more interesting level. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8V5NP9l3qf0U2XnVf8P_gYjl5XxJf2R1chHsnzGsfoSWdEfuTIoxd4TfSY6VvyFzopsvowhCnzzOpVcPCwl-WoEA3nJzlAqXgyGAbe64vXJZ6cpbVFlnzpD9Yqs9a4rMePS1uqAIGKos/s1600/DSC_0040.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8V5NP9l3qf0U2XnVf8P_gYjl5XxJf2R1chHsnzGsfoSWdEfuTIoxd4TfSY6VvyFzopsvowhCnzzOpVcPCwl-WoEA3nJzlAqXgyGAbe64vXJZ6cpbVFlnzpD9Yqs9a4rMePS1uqAIGKos/s400/DSC_0040.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">At any rate something needs to break up the monotony of essentially seeing the same piece over and over.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As they are they feel too much like a stab at achieving spirituality and meditation through minimalism, which should be avoided at all costs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A vast majority of art that makes that attempt results in the creation of some completely forgettable, un-engaging work.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I brought up the issue of viewing Meyer-McCall’s work in the context of Swangstu’s work because the thing that could not escape my attention in Meyer-McCall’s paintings was how similar the imagery was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A good many of her paintings use the same marks and imagery that I saw in her larger installation last September, which was groups of small, thickly painted circular shapes clustered against the bottom of the canvas as if succumbing to the force of gravity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For all I knew before, she had only explored this device once.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But as it turns out it’s a motif she uses way too often, and seeing it next to Swangstu’s pieces makes it impossible to ignore the repetition of this element in the paintings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwlp1QdAbopsJ1wcPTG5DQ4Pse2flvxZJI4JtuwWvGSA3bhPAMS586OQlI2UDaaeyBIf-h_jYMnsl5pPjzcQTJ2CvQd2Q1UjPGp_PRf8IeOohsvjcpaRqA_ogPL1uk0qbW-ajB30RxAhQ/s1600/DSC_0042.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwlp1QdAbopsJ1wcPTG5DQ4Pse2flvxZJI4JtuwWvGSA3bhPAMS586OQlI2UDaaeyBIf-h_jYMnsl5pPjzcQTJ2CvQd2Q1UjPGp_PRf8IeOohsvjcpaRqA_ogPL1uk0qbW-ajB30RxAhQ/s320/DSC_0042.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">On the bright side, Meyer-McCall shows a lot more willingness to experiment with her device.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The small circular paint daubs are seen in different configurations and settings, and in one instance appear in something close to a landscape. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it seems that this device is the only part of her work that she has perfected.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every attempt she makes at either adding to or working outside of the frequent motif looks unplanned and unfinished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a large double-canvas painting she embellishes the negative space with some random half-hearted brushstrokes, and pieces that completely abandon the daubs are random assemblages of marks, as if each time she began painting something she changed her mind after ten seconds, and after an hour of doing this called the painting finished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They simply lack commitment in any area and don’t appear to be an organized effort to express anything.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Jenny Meyer-McCall and Holly Swangstu show the ability and ideas to make some great works of art, but appear to restrain their work to its current state.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And really that’s a struggle that all artists have to deal with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Artists are always reaching new plateaus in their work, and there is the temptation to stay and feed of the current success rather than letting the work evolve for fear that it could move in a potentially less-successful direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it’s a risk that must be taken, because repeating the same formula results in stagnant work, and in trying to play it safe that successful formula loses its magic.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Kale Van Leeuwen at the Base Gallery</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUkzIlhNqQvG2xRffgVzw4INlxZ41DH8qQH19L8PqLp9YBENPtFwqHsX2abPBWwfGaCG92efCUItt0HQ64ltMMCqQrXSomKVxlaJ7vztD0wnMjgVdEWDJLZJvi9Y0CZnbllD0WHE7vexw/s1600/DSC_0052.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUkzIlhNqQvG2xRffgVzw4INlxZ41DH8qQH19L8PqLp9YBENPtFwqHsX2abPBWwfGaCG92efCUItt0HQ64ltMMCqQrXSomKVxlaJ7vztD0wnMjgVdEWDJLZJvi9Y0CZnbllD0WHE7vexw/s200/DSC_0052.JPG" width="133" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Leedy-Voulkos still hasn’t fully emerged from its winter shell yet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Half of the upstairs galleries are still closed and what they did have on display wasn’t worth mentioning, but fortunately I took the time to poke around and discover an interesting show in a very unlikely place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Base Gallery is accessed by a long narrow staircase at the back of the Leedy-Voulkos, and as far as I’m aware has never had a show worth seeing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The few times I ventured down that way I was faced with work so amateur I about-faced at the bottom of the stairs and left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because of that I rarely bother to check what’s happening in the Base Gallery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this time I was rewarded with seeing the paintings of Kale Van Leeuwen in the show “Urban Fairytales.”</span></div> <br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZwWm_2EXWZKOAcJ6d4OCE8kJmmfrAcOMe73Uy2jssESVhD1ONxPjbOW4GbBxgl02pWgOY_b5UoDu4xcQGN89tofp5-M-Tch-4_I8UQ58TsNZrgmqesVecvWUq6IbG64DWgZ2DKWApDbA/s1600/DSC_0045.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZwWm_2EXWZKOAcJ6d4OCE8kJmmfrAcOMe73Uy2jssESVhD1ONxPjbOW4GbBxgl02pWgOY_b5UoDu4xcQGN89tofp5-M-Tch-4_I8UQ58TsNZrgmqesVecvWUq6IbG64DWgZ2DKWApDbA/s400/DSC_0045.JPG" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Little Deer in the Big City"<br />
by Kale Van Leeuwen</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Encountering Van Leeuwen’s work in such an inconspicuous place is fitting because descending the narrow staircase can feel a bit like diving down the rabbit hole, and at the bottom are paintings of the city with surreal twists to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want to say that the work is actually paintings, but I can’t be too sure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first glance I was sure they were digital photo printouts that had been worked on top of, but a closer inspection of the finer details revealed that there were many brushstrokes within the images.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It could be that he painted what was in the photo on top of the printout to give it a different look, or there is also the possibility that he’s really that good and can emulate the effect of a car blurring from the shutter moving too slowly with paint.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">However he made them, the effect works well because it really keeps you guessing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some parts are obviously painted, but in other parts it’s not so clear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems that photography plays a part in the creation of the work, but how big a part, if at all?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It gets you questioning what’s real and what’s not, and it’s a great effect to have in a show where you want to transport the viewer into a fantasy realm like “Urban Fairytales.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Some of Van Leeuwen’s pieces reference popular fairy tales such as Rapunzel and Alice in Wonderland, and the others are simply scenes of the ordinary and the unusual colliding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In “Little Deer in the Big City,” a transparent fawn is shown standing in an intersection as a car cruises past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not so surreal, but a clip of something you don’t see every day.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a much more surreal piece, the steel spider sculpture in front of the Kemper Museum is shown walking down the street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There doesn’t seem to be any overarching message to these scenes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead they come off as individual oddities and daydreams, which works just fine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each piece becomes an exploration into a strange and enchanting visual landscape, and the viewer is given enough pieces in a believable space to let their imaginations go to work.</span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZXRWfGy-ACvVE8GKQdsFseh6MNcPc0o5tCqLs8xaqcUENP75sPYE6ctKj04gBMgKKu_Z21rQrXuKkpo0Uep1GmzkzQchTBBvYEYVHczYTOIbEIG_6VMwTwQhyphenhyphenWVKRVH2NgBpjxKx7fkk/s1600/DSC_0056.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZXRWfGy-ACvVE8GKQdsFseh6MNcPc0o5tCqLs8xaqcUENP75sPYE6ctKj04gBMgKKu_Z21rQrXuKkpo0Uep1GmzkzQchTBBvYEYVHczYTOIbEIG_6VMwTwQhyphenhyphenWVKRVH2NgBpjxKx7fkk/s400/DSC_0056.JPG" width="267" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If there is one thing that could improve Van Leeuwen’s work, it would be upping the surrealist elements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In most of the pieces the viewer is given a more or less regular scene with a single small twist of abnormality, and the pieces are visually compelling enough that there could be many layers to the visual and conceptual warping of these places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One thing that could be experimented with more is the special relations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is no rule that there has to be a standard front-middle-back ground layout, and it would be the perfect opportunity to play with this aspect of the painting in a fantasy-based picture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And the environments are so rich that there are plenty of opportunities to hide small subliminal tricks in the details.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Van Leeuwen plays with the effect of the glowing lights in the nighttime a lot, but there are other small efforts that could be made to up the strangeness factor in the images and create an environment for the viewer that is believable, but at the same time completely foreign.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The work Van Leeuwen has on display now is a great start in an interesting direction, I only hope that he continues to push his work further in the direction of becoming something truly incredible.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Therman Statom & Kent Michael Smith at Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Therman Statom</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Sherry Leedy Gallery of Contemporary Art is the kind of place where you usually encounter some heavy hitters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not just any run-of-the-mill fool can reach this level of the game.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Showing in a venue like the Sherry Leedy Gallery is an accomplishment in its own right, and it can lull some artists into a state of complacency.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is possible to feel completely satisfied with the achievement and work just enough to sustain that standing instead of pushing further and reaching for greater heights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is at this point that many artists choose to “go commercial” and run out their career producing sterile replications of the same piece for mass consumption.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXCuI1guerIoC1JQFOiG7lU09kE7JlT6ACxmLm340RtuIUm6_Qe3AdcUrrxvg03CSU2GiypJQf9CMjmTasH08QcYyrMV3zE_zju85JQ7LHQuGEmf9-WjqX0ICbGz3orsRYxCobFSbncqI/s1600/DSC_0061.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXCuI1guerIoC1JQFOiG7lU09kE7JlT6ACxmLm340RtuIUm6_Qe3AdcUrrxvg03CSU2GiypJQf9CMjmTasH08QcYyrMV3zE_zju85JQ7LHQuGEmf9-WjqX0ICbGz3orsRYxCobFSbncqI/s400/DSC_0061.JPG" width="267" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Of the two artists I looked at this month, Therman Statom is in more danger of falling into this trap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The work he had on display feels as if it is fully actualized, but I have trouble seeing where else it can possibly go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this concern in underscored by the fact that there are several pieces in the show that seem to be ineffective tangents off of the main idea, as useless as the extra impractical limbs grown by a species that’s hit an evolutionary wall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Several of Statom’s pieces are glass house structures, which by themselves are very interesting forms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are large enough that the viewer can move around them and get a full experience from all angles, and there is an added incentive to do so since parts of the walls are see through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The reflections of the glass create a dynamic space out of the hard-lined geometric dwellings, and provide a multi-layered environment to explore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Within the structures are different objects, mostly made of glass.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These tend to be rather bland objects – glass spheres and bottles, etc. – and the house structures would probably be better off empty than with these cliché objects in them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By themselves the forms of the houses are something that people can relate to, and they create compelling enough spaces that they invite exploration.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would almost be better to remove anything that would distract the viewer from analyzing the structure before them and what it means that it was created in this way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Viewing the houses themselves could raise the following question in the viewers head:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>how is it that we feel a connection to this geometric form that is made from a cold, hard, uninviting material?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or at least if their thoughts don’t delve so introspectively the viewer can at least appreciate the form of the house as it is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are fairly unique and clearly well-made.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By themselves they are interesting enough to be remembered and possibly dwelled upon in the future.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRd9MLzRglTyZvyNUEofkdQuxdhmqsXs7RaMxRxSJeqC6XcdTSz-VcBI1HmgWqCxSqURfPyadN4TX-UU9SrpQ8karmD54ILHVckeAmFGBFt7y1-m1-eu1l4dAFrdFxjRlC3DNWm9Dey9E/s1600/DSC_0059.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRd9MLzRglTyZvyNUEofkdQuxdhmqsXs7RaMxRxSJeqC6XcdTSz-VcBI1HmgWqCxSqURfPyadN4TX-UU9SrpQ8karmD54ILHVckeAmFGBFt7y1-m1-eu1l4dAFrdFxjRlC3DNWm9Dey9E/s400/DSC_0059.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There are several different objects placed inside these houses, none of which enhances the piece very well, and the most frequent object used is the cliché glass sphere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These spheres are very attention-grabbing because they are so different from the angular space that contains them, and distract the viewer’s eyes from looking at the interesting glass forms to something that is more strongly associated with a museum gift shop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The house forms have a very obvious manufactured feel to them, but they are such uniquely shaped structures that the artist’s hand still lends them a touch of personality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The spheres on the other hand are generic forms with less character than a bowling ball. </span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGAQmmS0l13RLpsQAzkLeM-UbVN-CBr2DbULxC-RtTnVFw_RllItiCJPurdVh0VxDvLTVzlotKZOhLxSlHYe-gpMTYNr7wSfEhmHAAICIQDgY9UEiydNZGO7u9lRs7xyrB7ybBcyecSTM/s1600/DSC_0070.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGAQmmS0l13RLpsQAzkLeM-UbVN-CBr2DbULxC-RtTnVFw_RllItiCJPurdVh0VxDvLTVzlotKZOhLxSlHYe-gpMTYNr7wSfEhmHAAICIQDgY9UEiydNZGO7u9lRs7xyrB7ybBcyecSTM/s320/DSC_0070.JPG" width="214" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Statom’s work has obviously come a long way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His pieces look too refined for him to have started making these things recently.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it feels like he didn’t know where else to go with a good idea and started sticking crud in them just to change things up a bit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is also a very gaudy 5 foot tall ladder form with random glass objects stuck all over it that doesn’t fit anything else that is going on in the show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s as if he decided that he was accomplished enough that he didn’t have to try to impress the viewer anymore, and that any glass thing he turned out would be received without complaint.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Well I feel the need to say something about it, because it’s generic pieces of art like this that end up getting bought by corporations because they’re safe, something that could never truly offend anybody’s taste, and that’s what gets displayed to the public as the current state of contemporary art.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s a piece of junk that says nothing to anybody, and even worse, it detracts from the highlights of what could be a really good gallery show.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">One of my favorite things about the show is the reference to Mondrian’s paintings in the work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the large painting on the wall, large rectangles of primary colors have been worked into the composition and directly reference the work of the modernist painter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These same rectangles are also seen repeated in the other glass structures of the show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yellow and blue rectangles worked into the house structures mirror what is happening in the larger piece on the wall which creates a strong sense of unity between the pieces, and also adds to the idea that the work is analyzing the human environment in the modern age.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The show would be much stronger if it worked to push the use of these devices further and Statom returned all his glass spheres to the museum gift shop he bought them from.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Kent Michael Smith</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Kent Michael Smith has figured out a very sharp aesthetic for his work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By pouring several layers of a clear gloss resin over a panel he makes some abstract pieces of incredible depth that are far beyond what could be achieved without this method.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The core of his pieces focuses on brightly-colored arrangements of abstract shapes that appear to be inspired by graffiti.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ordinarily it would be hard to see these compositions as anything but a typographer’s doodles, but the process through which they are created puts these shapes in a context that infuses them with much more vitality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZvBqNSF_lR3hPwtqeXRS51SwANIeUFiK1HzbVpOFRNBO5sj2HBHrhv5qi9pc5VqYhfhOW2q4tabLsegMFupVJirSJpg3ScVkLIMpbWmSXehn4MXqBDj9kctz2kpKly4_WRBEGPRDRISE/s1600/DSC_0073.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZvBqNSF_lR3hPwtqeXRS51SwANIeUFiK1HzbVpOFRNBO5sj2HBHrhv5qi9pc5VqYhfhOW2q4tabLsegMFupVJirSJpg3ScVkLIMpbWmSXehn4MXqBDj9kctz2kpKly4_WRBEGPRDRISE/s400/DSC_0073.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A closer look shows that the shapes themselves are not a single mass but several layered images built on top of each other, and although the space between layers is not drastic it is enough to give a sense of movement and life to the abstraction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It feels as if it was grown rather than drawn, and leads the viewer into thinking more about the creative process in general than getting stuck on what is seen immediately in front of them.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The show is a bit monotonous in that all the pieces are essentially the same thing executed with different variations, but they are interesting enough to explore that it’s not a distraction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s also impressive that Smith is able to incorporate typically untouchable elements like glitter into the pieces and make it work seamlessly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In any other type of work a glitter effect would be just gaudy, but the high-gloss effect of the work masks the glitter and it blends in among the rest of the thin washes and bright blocks of color, which themselves could be unbearable in other circumstances.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZAaBjtT6FxKR84F66QM-Pi0EsDySpaiuswFxpPM-BfUpzyfxx05mzLrK7MccexZuVd5e35RGWsmIFJPTDoCf1cfEK08knJH81afICI7ay3FzpEx43o9GBREi1Q9w4UKu4B20ldob7zmk/s1600/DSC_0078.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZAaBjtT6FxKR84F66QM-Pi0EsDySpaiuswFxpPM-BfUpzyfxx05mzLrK7MccexZuVd5e35RGWsmIFJPTDoCf1cfEK08knJH81afICI7ay3FzpEx43o9GBREi1Q9w4UKu4B20ldob7zmk/s320/DSC_0078.JPG" width="214" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Everything in Smith’s presentation works together, making for a nice show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just hope that he doesn’t become too afraid to change what he’s doing in his future pieces, because as of now the work is good, but it would be real disappointing to see a Kent Michael Smith show next year of similar work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s never a good idea to continue playing off the same artistic formula over and over, but it could get old particularly quick in this kind of work that is held together only by the method through which it is made.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If that happens, there won’t be enough clear gloss resin in the world to tone down those streaks of glitter.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Erica Mahinay at Arts Incubator</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The still life is one of the oldest conventions in art, and painter Erica Mahinay has come up with a way<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>of making it relevant again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead of painting on a canvas, Mahinay uses pieces of frosted plexi-glass as her surface, which gives her some interesting options to work with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In “Still life with pears” what would ordinarily be a dull painting of some fruit is instead embellished by leaving portions of the plexi-glass unpainted to reveal several ceramic pear cores behind the actual painting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It wouldn’t necessarily have to be pear cores found behind the piece for this effect to work well, simply breaking up the space using this method is enough to keep the piece from being just another still life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm1tBmHwFLKmk97pZgnAL3uSn282KZ3A5Kow0UmGJjaMevMhBrRLPLvDNw8w29lNA9EUVZwJ5w51w67iSNB4kXj-eFVx0BAyQM_0G9HC0WFoGomEhTX2uwg0KgsitBh-yxraU7IXDtkpk/s1600/DSC_0094.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm1tBmHwFLKmk97pZgnAL3uSn282KZ3A5Kow0UmGJjaMevMhBrRLPLvDNw8w29lNA9EUVZwJ5w51w67iSNB4kXj-eFVx0BAyQM_0G9HC0WFoGomEhTX2uwg0KgsitBh-yxraU7IXDtkpk/s400/DSC_0094.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Mahinay also has several of the ceramic pieces suspended on the outside of the piece from wires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If this were done on a traditional painting without the added transparent background it would probably look very silly, and maybe even cliché in a strange way, but with the addition of space behind the piece these frontal objects do not look out of place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this show the actual paintings become the middle ground between objects placed in front of and behind the picture plane, and these spatial relationships complete the work with nice visual and conceptual depth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we see the painting sandwiched between these two additional planes, we can begin to see the scene as a snapshot in time, with the objects representing a possible before and after of that scene, or at least something from the painting in a different state of being, which is more compelling than looking at fruit on a table.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE5loOyxOsl5iVNKoB10D45i7acpM3UHXLF7XvfaVjXEz_MYdwS73bQfDgjLUnNFgwRkRc7uN6KaYUz_4MyIQP5YVuKyaVZsu-tB8bETuL1202uKBOMVAUSDZ8zZ2f2Ct55LnebBBk-6Y/s1600/DSC_0097.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE5loOyxOsl5iVNKoB10D45i7acpM3UHXLF7XvfaVjXEz_MYdwS73bQfDgjLUnNFgwRkRc7uN6KaYUz_4MyIQP5YVuKyaVZsu-tB8bETuL1202uKBOMVAUSDZ8zZ2f2Ct55LnebBBk-6Y/s400/DSC_0097.JPG" width="267" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But of the two effects, incorporating objects on top of the piece and objects that can be seen behind the piece, I prefer the latter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Having objects emerge within the image is a very effective way of enhancing the painted image without running the risk of overdoing it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No matter what you see through the glass, it is still contained within the image and feels as if it is a solid component of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But adding objects on to the exterior of the piece must be done delicately, and I’m tempted to say that Mahinay gets a little careless in doing this sometimes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Where this effort doesn’t work well is when the added objects don’t feel well incorporated with the rest of the work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One example is a painting of a dining room table that is split down the middle by a bundle of large hair braids.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The image itself is very good, with the table sitting over a pile of turkey bones that appear underneath the plexi-glass and eventually emerge on the outer surface of the painting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This effect works well with the painted image and doesn’t come off as overbearing, but then the braids almost become too strong of an element and distract from the rest of the piece.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I think the real problem with the braids in this case is that they don’t feel grounded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They hang suspended just above the top of the piece on a small stick, then drape down the rift between the two panels, then fall to the floor in a pile below.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where are these braids coming from, and where are they going?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is their purpose and means of existence?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our brains can make sense of the braids when they are within the picture plane because even though they are very different from the rest of the piece, they feel contained and incorporated into that context.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But having them run through the piece and hang out leaves, excuse the pun here, too many loose ends to deal with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpd8gOrWBUES_U0MobpM-dbIO2_2xOyFJ9Yt2SKLlAYWONpLK4Ua941lCACZZ0FaH2mAWl7_GKAMPfVsMOsXprIPblJUxjmJAcqChoYR1bY8ZhLR7hJH_wQk6Ti6fAFgmxgNa5ot-RNkk/s1600/DSC_0103.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpd8gOrWBUES_U0MobpM-dbIO2_2xOyFJ9Yt2SKLlAYWONpLK4Ua941lCACZZ0FaH2mAWl7_GKAMPfVsMOsXprIPblJUxjmJAcqChoYR1bY8ZhLR7hJH_wQk6Ti6fAFgmxgNa5ot-RNkk/s400/DSC_0103.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">If the braids were coming out of the wall, or coming out of a box or other object, or stayed contained within the picture plane, then they would feel like an integrated component of a larger piece.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But as they are they feel incomplete and tacked on, as if Mahinay had an idea for their inclusion in the overall piece but didn’t finish working out the details and left the piece as is for the show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another of her pieces that has a jumble of furniture parts piled below it suffers from the same problem of not feeling completely resolved.</span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZnBrWiLSvnIm9Oe_t7irXHU7i9yDfD_x1GbOYeDEsL1_RQghH5nlvAgcIEyYFsMrH97bq9axmgia_vCJS_SeJ-WhF6NBA3q4k2HPvLx1b-gcf1bWGgIvN7gvE6nWEYFI44nECO9ZkIwA/s1600/DSC_0105.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZnBrWiLSvnIm9Oe_t7irXHU7i9yDfD_x1GbOYeDEsL1_RQghH5nlvAgcIEyYFsMrH97bq9axmgia_vCJS_SeJ-WhF6NBA3q4k2HPvLx1b-gcf1bWGgIvN7gvE6nWEYFI44nECO9ZkIwA/s320/DSC_0105.JPG" width="214" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">But one example where Mahinay lets loose with the sculptural elements and does it well is in the largest piece in the show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This work features a painting of packing peanuts, moving boxes, and sheets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has real packing peanuts seen behind portions of the glass with ceramic packing peanuts fixed on the outside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This piece is also split by an object, this time a white sheet, but it works much better than the piece with the hair braids because the added object feels completed by being part of a larger network of objects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In this case the sheet is suspended by twine from a frame higher up on the wall, making a complete circuit that passes through the main portion of the piece.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It is also visually and conceptually better linked to the work by continuing elements found in the piece beyond the rectangular boundary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sheet is filled with the ceramic packing peanut forms, and through it are also strung two teacups like the ones painted into the image.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unlike the braided hair piece, this work feels like a well-rounded effort at pushing the piece to a new level rather than introducing a three-dimensional element just for the sake of adding something three-dimensional.</span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqwN1rfEQJs6_sB40k8HlNvZKoTC9Z5KN63Cnsy0xl8j2q3vzEnUlAfZLvNyTNQlbOdQNvph42DD73UXdj48szu1f_8PHNvyeGcmDkL3qGt0iSIITTflMHlCxMFIcNB1ZEvqx7TiRkWUI/s1600/DSC_0092.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqwN1rfEQJs6_sB40k8HlNvZKoTC9Z5KN63Cnsy0xl8j2q3vzEnUlAfZLvNyTNQlbOdQNvph42DD73UXdj48szu1f_8PHNvyeGcmDkL3qGt0iSIITTflMHlCxMFIcNB1ZEvqx7TiRkWUI/s320/DSC_0092.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Mahinay exhibits some ingenuity in this show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes some mettle to even attempt making work like this, and I hope she continues to work with and refine the same ideas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has established an interesting aesthetic that draws from older and slightly ornate room interiors, changes throughout time, and food.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While it’s not entirely clear what is meant through these references, it’s also not that important so long as the pieces work visually.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But perhaps Mahinay would be able to enhance her work by pushing it in a direction where her unusual methods become a means of saying something more specific about the themes she’s working with.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Unknown at the Next Space Gallery – BEST IN SHOW</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtd8Npwg-918DOVh_2kq9-D-AMcRebeRkTccl9goxgbXetsGc1h3KIlcK6C3NLf61LecngyHQhb7uHZe9aAm5dcJiPNdOwsuUGazX6Uf8X2zjjcGjb5dwkjSq-MV5akbVt2l6GSG0MvuM/s1600/DSC_0108.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtd8Npwg-918DOVh_2kq9-D-AMcRebeRkTccl9goxgbXetsGc1h3KIlcK6C3NLf61LecngyHQhb7uHZe9aAm5dcJiPNdOwsuUGazX6Uf8X2zjjcGjb5dwkjSq-MV5akbVt2l6GSG0MvuM/s400/DSC_0108.JPG" width="400" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>This is a little unusual, but I don’t know the name of the artist responsible for my favorite show of this First Friday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Next Space Gallery is an oddball little space just inside the pale on the far end of 18<sup>th</sup> Street, right after the Slap and Tickle Gallery and right before you start wandering through the abandoned industrial landscape by the highway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve passed by Next Space before, and it seems to be a place that attracts an “outsider art” crowd, or people who love and make art but have never formally studied it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Work by artists like this can be exciting to see because they are so unrestricted in what they do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are not trying to impress anyone or live up to anyone else’s standards.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are making the work they want to make, and there is a real purity to that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And this particular time I felt compelled to go in and check out what they had based on the incredibly large and intricate drawing I could see through the front window.</span></div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheZWUrECf-RPCy4YxRCcDTCon01rj4FxE2tSrYh8MS11u6ZLXVHmtLSuqI7BTU2_tL8MSX4O8a1drbj4hBEMGaP6Mc3MScaubTxUvLVw6fvjCj4CeoSflMjcuAcNwjK_9ZmByeJREmb9s/s1600/DSC_0110.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheZWUrECf-RPCy4YxRCcDTCon01rj4FxE2tSrYh8MS11u6ZLXVHmtLSuqI7BTU2_tL8MSX4O8a1drbj4hBEMGaP6Mc3MScaubTxUvLVw6fvjCj4CeoSflMjcuAcNwjK_9ZmByeJREmb9s/s320/DSC_0110.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A close detail shot of the above piece</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Next Space Gallery is a gallery only in name. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s really a small, dark little building with no easily distinguishable purpose.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On entering there are passages that go to the right and to the left.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>To the left was a large room that was apparently not in use, but among the chairs and other items stored in there were several strange drawings on the wall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The only one I remember in specific looked to be a morbid marker drawing involving Ronald McDonald.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So maybe this room was part of the show and they just forgot to turn the lights on?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I decided not to mess with it and headed back to the other side with the drawing that caught my attention in the first place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPYTjrfll3fa97j5XaidzczE72rTAw06QUFpxe1xZ32StG6pOxl5vcm00-G16kCmd1yktY6QaUPujoQDIYmBT3imVU1ENGEO6NTojtMOVLQgPcAlvjgL5oDes_7dEjgjpYihTNs2wYuPk/s1600/DSC_0114.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPYTjrfll3fa97j5XaidzczE72rTAw06QUFpxe1xZ32StG6pOxl5vcm00-G16kCmd1yktY6QaUPujoQDIYmBT3imVU1ENGEO6NTojtMOVLQgPcAlvjgL5oDes_7dEjgjpYihTNs2wYuPk/s320/DSC_0114.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It is a very dense colored pencil drawing that from a distance looks like it could be a very detailed illustration of London in the 1800’s, with soft curves of similar-sized squares and rectangles packing the 4’x4’ panel in soft muted color tones.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then up close it is seen that the whole piece was made of abstract shapes mimicking letters, each being about ½ an inch square.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each shape is individually outlined and colored with great detail, and the composition is dense enough that it is likely that these symbols were actually used to conceal further drawing underneath.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would take an unimaginable amount of time to complete this piece. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And there is such a strong sense of order and consistency to the symbols in the drawing and the patterns which they follow that the whole piece was obsessively labored over by the artist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a solid expression of an idea or state of being that I could never achieve or understand myself, and that is what makes this piece truly great.</span></div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiciNefNWnfHOjf_fS1r73pBJloj5wLmCTUVN_0p3GEp_Wzl7TsgDI2MKKVY72eV3vPCYQSjnHtGblSLN7OPgan-br7-0Zc53tDwtDAFA860f9Se-2WEad9feQoWuHZK74FOs6QnJH6JiU/s1600/DSC_0120.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiciNefNWnfHOjf_fS1r73pBJloj5wLmCTUVN_0p3GEp_Wzl7TsgDI2MKKVY72eV3vPCYQSjnHtGblSLN7OPgan-br7-0Zc53tDwtDAFA860f9Se-2WEad9feQoWuHZK74FOs6QnJH6JiU/s320/DSC_0120.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An extreme closeup look at the piece shown above</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Along the same lines is a piece in the back, but instead of being made of symbols the large panel is a rich tapestry of small lines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Up close this drawing also reveals the same obsessiveness and care in creating the pattern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The marks have the feel of being made fairly randomly, but studying the consistency of the marks reveals that they are actually made with quick precision.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There are the only two other pieces in the show that boast these engrossing “all-over” style compositions, which is understandable because that would probably limit the artist to putting on a show every ten years or so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rest of the works on display covered a wide variety of subjects and styles, but they were all great to look at because they each employ some very unusual method of making the image that is executed with perfect precision.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a set of paintings labeled “Mike Enike” a simple trick of brushing thin white acrylic so that the paint bunches at the edges is used perfectly to create an illusion of a shape similar to that of Mike and Ike candies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is simple, but it is done so well and with such precision that it creates a truly dynamic result in the piece.</span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD-vPyNQTtcsndK2HWWnsUUUkicrucEFqqwlCdUXYuh05fmeazCFSrems7E4_fA97VDA22AeQKX7eLikRh9xufUj4Tgiz80HnxmrYrkWpbG-1lMTFbD8goKyiQTwOv3M0eI3d01e7xXMQ/s1600/DSC_0128.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD-vPyNQTtcsndK2HWWnsUUUkicrucEFqqwlCdUXYuh05fmeazCFSrems7E4_fA97VDA22AeQKX7eLikRh9xufUj4Tgiz80HnxmrYrkWpbG-1lMTFbD8goKyiQTwOv3M0eI3d01e7xXMQ/s320/DSC_0128.JPG" width="214" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I only declare whoever put this show together as an “outsider” artist based on the off-beat nature of the space it was shown in, the lack of style and subject continuity through the pieces, and how unconventional the work is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If this person received any training as an artists, then they are an incredible genius because they were able to shed any trace of indoctrination or conventionality they may have received.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What makes this show so good is its gritty purity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is actually art for the sake of art, and there is a humble genius in how far the simple ideas that provide the basis for these works is taken.</span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>mkuhlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04592066268729442981noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8368113811145285959.post-73863312196027100302011-02-07T10:45:00.000-08:002011-02-07T10:50:43.229-08:00Short month, short review...the Jodi Lightner Code...taking a fresh look at common scenes...go big or go home<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Ok, February review time!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Apologies for the absence last month, but I was conducting interviews for my other site, <a href="http://www.theprintperspective.com/">The Print Perspective</a> (have you checked it lately?)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Navigation in the crossroads was difficult in the aftermath of “Snowpocalypse”, with many of the sidewalks still buried up to a foot deep in snow.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I expected, there wasn’t a whole lot going on, but I managed to find a couple shows worth talking about, so in honor of our shortest month, here is a short review…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Jodi Lightner at Arts Incubator – Best in Show</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Jodi Lightner’s show of drawings at Arts Incubator is one that aspiring young artists should see, because she puts on a workshop of effective painting and drawing techniques.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her pieces are relatively large, with the smallest dimension being about three feet or so, and from a distance they don’t look like much.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of them contain soft blends of muted colors created by imprecise brush marks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are a few recognizable objects that are clearly seen, and also some rough indications of buildings and other structures worked into the images.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They appear to be a similar style to Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase,” which is interesting but not incredible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, the key to Lightner’s work that does make it incredible is the subtle details.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The moment of realization comes when you draw in close enough to see exactly how dense and rich the image is, and find that in fact there is a framework and structure holding the loose washes and strokes of paint together.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqRqegwJZUzjeL8nMYX5X6OMOykmMODUUhkBhsu5YWMlxoonF39t4Fdnaq-h-BsB-3YjpuLLsUrD0v9OYR52SSjNZV2_kLdbN_95FeLW8nDgXUhDEKvlR6gariPsSFnrFAROks5zJ7gYs/s1600/DSC_0010.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqRqegwJZUzjeL8nMYX5X6OMOykmMODUUhkBhsu5YWMlxoonF39t4Fdnaq-h-BsB-3YjpuLLsUrD0v9OYR52SSjNZV2_kLdbN_95FeLW8nDgXUhDEKvlR6gariPsSFnrFAROks5zJ7gYs/s320/DSC_0010.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Using subtle details to pull a piece together is not uncommon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More often than not moving in closer to examine a piece will change how its appearance for the better, but Lightner uses subtlety in a very skillful way, so well that I had no expectation of finding anything new under closer inspection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of her drawings are on frosted mylar, a translucent film with a matte finish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This surface gives the final image a very different appearance than if it were on paper, canvas, or wood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s hard to describe exactly, but the mylar softens everything in the work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All the materials seem to merge together even though there are obviously separate layers of paint and ink, and the mylar reflects the light and also allows the white wall behind it to show through in a way that gives the pieces a diffused haze effect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJUppLzYMxLnK8UklL76mIZHGkgNcsQMqzQ7ZDS4FUgQMTEqLoGku4u5L0JAuOvxHOjfk71Dbquyw9Cam42ckxR8Nhzoh8kcpIaaawdY1f9P0Y-cEuoJ8dQTDVc-wwo41WeqJwF68GHMg/s1600/DSC_0003.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJUppLzYMxLnK8UklL76mIZHGkgNcsQMqzQ7ZDS4FUgQMTEqLoGku4u5L0JAuOvxHOjfk71Dbquyw9Cam42ckxR8Nhzoh8kcpIaaawdY1f9P0Y-cEuoJ8dQTDVc-wwo41WeqJwF68GHMg/s400/DSC_0003.JPG" width="267" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This, combined with the limited amount of paint the surface can accept allows all kinds of fine lines to tie the piece together, and exploring these environments is what makes Lightner’s work so exciting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The line work provides a sense of completion to the loosely-brushed composition and it becomes apparent that there is actually a tightly unified structure to the pieces. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In one piece a grouping of pale horizontal streaks are revealed to be fragments of a staircase.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In another, what appear to be the support cables of a suspension bridge provide grounding to roughed in fragments of ornate interior architecture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In all the pieces she is able to strike a perfect balance of activity and stillness, line and form, detail and ambiguity.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For me, looking at Lightner’s work brings a haunting feeling of solitude.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She portrays things associated with dwellings, but there is no indication of any people in the work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fragmentary portrayal of these places seems to express an idea of abandonment, as if we are seeing these spaces as they crumble in disrepair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Several of the buildings and places she portrays actually have indications of wear – in one piece a weathered looking shack sits stranded in the middle of the page, and the walkway in “Carrying on Like a Pendulum” is littered with pebbles and grime from disuse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOB94mYRwJcb9OhzK-UEfaIsoriE0M-2oQN_EKlIrgKHpRKGMyRBU1yVdoUExMu1vZzLj2gmNQEnBjv3HxPcmThRhgnNQk9dtJUF3egx2BrG97jT3Nr2e2CAdLJroPk9KyWLNJoPH9KvY/s1600/DSC_0002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOB94mYRwJcb9OhzK-UEfaIsoriE0M-2oQN_EKlIrgKHpRKGMyRBU1yVdoUExMu1vZzLj2gmNQEnBjv3HxPcmThRhgnNQk9dtJUF3egx2BrG97jT3Nr2e2CAdLJroPk9KyWLNJoPH9KvY/s320/DSC_0002.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But considering the title of the latter piece, we could also consider the possibility that these pieces mean to express a passage of time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a world where change is constant, we strive to construct stable environments for ourselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The buildings we make are part of a struggle against change and unpredictability, and the contrast between the highly rendered areas of her work and the more ambiguous parts could support the conclusion that she’s expressing something about this part of our existence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Also at play is a consideration of the larger idea of structure vs. chaos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When analyzing situation that is thought to be chaotic, it is likely that the apparent randomness comes from inaccurately interpreting fragments of a complex pattern.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Such is the same with Lightner’s work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At a glance there appear to be many parts placed more or less at random, when really they are pieces of a larger underlying structure.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9g5EFPbeaHYSuf8B3Pp_HalgdMjbPhyphenhyphenFjJOs0diYdY9wYMpqYY5ApIrrd2b5m9h1JyUMAW1nKrMzj7hbeAy11uU79mnxlxnAmosgVMeyDf85DSZQZJ_YbDkxdHiOj6fKMMSdzPWPpq4s/s1600/DSC_0006.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9g5EFPbeaHYSuf8B3Pp_HalgdMjbPhyphenhyphenFjJOs0diYdY9wYMpqYY5ApIrrd2b5m9h1JyUMAW1nKrMzj7hbeAy11uU79mnxlxnAmosgVMeyDf85DSZQZJ_YbDkxdHiOj6fKMMSdzPWPpq4s/s400/DSC_0006.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAJrakqM1mLlS8WPS9EO5z9oN2k22DVCura2ojzdfLggfCXFmw798_Kow_r_W8_9E1CF9-IEPjM6TRR9Q3kMn3TDUDZ04GBT0J81AigOk071p7LGv-owzx26zzdGsb_qcbqdwueGaHB0g/s1600/DSC_0014.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAJrakqM1mLlS8WPS9EO5z9oN2k22DVCura2ojzdfLggfCXFmw798_Kow_r_W8_9E1CF9-IEPjM6TRR9Q3kMn3TDUDZ04GBT0J81AigOk071p7LGv-owzx26zzdGsb_qcbqdwueGaHB0g/s200/DSC_0014.JPG" width="133" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There are a number of ways that the work can be taken and all of them make sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I think perhaps the best way to take them is just as an interesting visual journey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The effects gained by the mylar give the pieces a dreamy feel,<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and Lightner provides many good entry points into her works with a use of perspective and recognizable objects that lead the viewer into the environment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These pieces are about feeling, not thinking, and they’re very good at what they do.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Jodi Lightner's website can be seen <a href="http://www.jodilightner.com/">here</a>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Anna Zimmerman at Plenum Space</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Taking interesting photos this day in age is difficult because of how ingrained cameras have become in our lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was only 15 or so years ago that taking a picture at least required the effort of taking film to be developed, and printing anything larger than a 4x6 required a decent amount of skill.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was easier to appreciate a photograph then because even a picture of something relatively common was still just above the ‘I could do that’ bar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now just about everyone has a digital camera on them at all times and printing anything is as easy as emailing a file to Kinko’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Taking an impressive photo is all the more tricky now because there is no inherent value in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A photo these days needs some sort of gimmick or some real thought put into the content to avoid being brushed aside as ‘just another picture’, and it seems like Anna Zimmerman understands this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpoXL8JUShTE0oEOthRugU_WdmQn59WPTxlkipkq_RAfOLvdCq0UuQ_kxEQWUmm4cfN27w_DTGFAlEJmK6vwfNloebcvhGmBUpEaAJFT8bt9vFTNKKEn4v8B2ZRGyHbnbSmDfF6VWBkDo/s1600/DSC_0024.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpoXL8JUShTE0oEOthRugU_WdmQn59WPTxlkipkq_RAfOLvdCq0UuQ_kxEQWUmm4cfN27w_DTGFAlEJmK6vwfNloebcvhGmBUpEaAJFT8bt9vFTNKKEn4v8B2ZRGyHbnbSmDfF6VWBkDo/s320/DSC_0024.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Symbiosis of Lime and Lichen"</td></tr>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Zimmerman’s show of color photographs at Plenum Space focused on finding interesting compositions in extreme close-ups of scenes and objects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because she zooms in so close, the viewer does not automatically think about what the objects in the picture are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This opens up possibilities within the viewer’s mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are no longer looking at a photograph of something in specific, but an abstract image.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And because the brain doesn’t automatically recognize anything it dwells on the details more, and we are able to appreciate the shapes and forms we see for what they are, not what we think they are.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It works best in “Symbiosis of Lime and Lichen” where the photo is filled with gradients of neutral colored specks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes a few seconds to realize the shot is actually an extreme close-up view of a cement step, and even after this realization comes it is still possible to enjoy the photo as the non-representational gradations of neutral-colored it was first seen as.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX9fC3kx3ix8eysrYZnoVprQiB9FKeSroCJGMPuuNusJ6QcMBimfP6rQTYFfz0dPaFGZq8T2xEW1gxdjW34cMEhEwSa96_DC64KK7QStbsTh7a1RDBrzWguShv51_1WwOqEwtjRyzX9gs/s1600/DSC_0027.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX9fC3kx3ix8eysrYZnoVprQiB9FKeSroCJGMPuuNusJ6QcMBimfP6rQTYFfz0dPaFGZq8T2xEW1gxdjW34cMEhEwSa96_DC64KK7QStbsTh7a1RDBrzWguShv51_1WwOqEwtjRyzX9gs/s320/DSC_0027.JPG" width="214" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Knowing that it is a picture of a step does not take away anything from the image itself, and actually enhances it a bit by getting us thinking about paying more attention to detail in our daily lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If a simple cement step that we walk over so often can look so interesting from a certain perspective, how many hundreds of similar instances do we pass by without even noticing?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It is clear that seeing the image as abstract and shedding the mental labels we have for objects is an important part of achieving this effect, because her photos where the objects are more recognizable are not as strong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not to say that there is nothing of interest in these photos.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A shot of an orange oak leaf trapped underneath is a nice vignette of a temporary moment in life that can be enjoyed and dwelled upon, but as a photo it is too easy to just see the objects – leaf, door – and move on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Shots like these could benefit from the same vision seen in “Symbiosis of Lime and Lichen” that would frame the scene in a more unique way, making it more memorable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Zimmerman also had several photos of rocks, most of which could also benefit from being shown in a more abstract way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there was one in particular that caught my interest, where she incorporated collaged pieces of paper into the photo and drew patterns into them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These additions created a nice push and pull in the space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The piece as I saw it was a little raw, perhaps in the beginning stage of exploring this idea, but it looked like it had a lot of potential and I hope she chooses to pursue it in future works.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR8Ql0BbWUkIZLBtp3u3Og2EUr4Pk1L3ULf7couD6NIQNs4vnDn_ImYpCUUv7fQYs27MogMaU_cgyK42rJHjgMV-ZKQNtM9ykJ6OolOHkp6V-Y3iEr16nPj6j_AXapxU9uksLo4zEN8uM/s1600/DSC_0032.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR8Ql0BbWUkIZLBtp3u3Og2EUr4Pk1L3ULf7couD6NIQNs4vnDn_ImYpCUUv7fQYs27MogMaU_cgyK42rJHjgMV-ZKQNtM9ykJ6OolOHkp6V-Y3iEr16nPj6j_AXapxU9uksLo4zEN8uM/s320/DSC_0032.JPG" width="214" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Barbara Grad at the Kemper Gallery</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAuF4WHwIX9E6n3kXdJST6ycNztJ-eUCjXPgZLniFWwP9jXh9qOkq0DL3NpcX9xkUY5yiYPNxqhs6RM3rbn-7tImyyTYqYPFAhXQZx_Kp0OHLjkiN-eysackyOdCdxFxCZCiI6fmaisqo/s1600/o-t.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAuF4WHwIX9E6n3kXdJST6ycNztJ-eUCjXPgZLniFWwP9jXh9qOkq0DL3NpcX9xkUY5yiYPNxqhs6RM3rbn-7tImyyTYqYPFAhXQZx_Kp0OHLjkiN-eysackyOdCdxFxCZCiI6fmaisqo/s320/o-t.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Kemper Gallery typically attracts some pretty high-end work, and I was disappointed to find their showing of paintings by Barbara Grad very bland.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her showing of oil paintings had all the typical elements shared by a vast majority of oil paintings seen today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are large-ish works with most of the canvases remaining in a safe mid-range size, the color use is primarily bright and saturated, the brush strokes create vague abstract forms with some rooting in geometry, and there are various areas built more densely with brushstrokes while other areas are subdued with thin pale washes of paint.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All typical devices, and all used in a very safe manner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Grad's work is similar to the band Creed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Creed uses all the tried and true devices in the history of rock music and combines them into a safe replication of what has already been done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They don’t take a chance in any direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They stick to the bare basics of the rock music formula, resulting in a completely boring music group with no flair.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIQcpxbGZjjdW_YMT0b3x5bnCQXsXmeEvuyhbqXFBGYq5U_l7KFhzkVytmhQVoAMh_UjRCbOhHlT418ffphSwndPP6R-J4JO1Of7WqFpuSyR3sJzjcx7IOjBCQrSfnSS39CbvgXPfJLlE/s1600/DSC_0036.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIQcpxbGZjjdW_YMT0b3x5bnCQXsXmeEvuyhbqXFBGYq5U_l7KFhzkVytmhQVoAMh_UjRCbOhHlT418ffphSwndPP6R-J4JO1Of7WqFpuSyR3sJzjcx7IOjBCQrSfnSS39CbvgXPfJLlE/s320/DSC_0036.JPG" width="214" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Grad’s paintings are a very static mish-mash of shapes that offer no opportunity for the viewer to discern a rhyme or reason with what they are being presented.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The shapes and forms are very generalized, with no attempt at adding definition to them after they are first painted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even in areas where some level of interest can be found in the layers of lines stacked upon one another, they have no impact because they are floating stranded in the middle of the canvas.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If there was some grounding or visual space created for these parts of the paintings to exist in they wouldn’t look so awkward, but instead these attempts at building a structure are surrounded by undertreated canvas, as if she forgot to work the rest of the picture and quickly filled in the remaining space just to have something there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Her statement claims that the work was inspired by maps her son made detailing levels of video games and aerial topography images.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Knowing this, I could detect elements of each in the paintings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were unmistakable portions of map layouts from Nintendo games and references to topographical lines, but it doesn’t help the work make any more sense.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These inspirations are actually so hidden among the general “painting” that I wouldn’t have found them without help, so I think it’s fair to say that considering the meaning of these elements is unimportant to the work.</span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJkPPHYK3AMaw09deqqYM0A5YweIEY9UCL9GxdjciqLe3ngVm3_NXv0nMu_sUCYjAvpHAGPwjrlc1ILUj6CUznw8qhTEt__7iLYEMLK_kNERQCmDRwzacD3T6B1Mg_Athn-c9R801B3-U/s1600/roundtrip-10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="205" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJkPPHYK3AMaw09deqqYM0A5YweIEY9UCL9GxdjciqLe3ngVm3_NXv0nMu_sUCYjAvpHAGPwjrlc1ILUj6CUznw8qhTEt__7iLYEMLK_kNERQCmDRwzacD3T6B1Mg_Athn-c9R801B3-U/s320/roundtrip-10.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In an art show, all the pieces work together to form an overall impression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not every aspect of a theme or concept is going to be present in every work, so it is important that each piece has something to contribute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In Grad’s show the large pieces have very small amounts of things that the viewer might find interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her smaller paintings could help support the larger works by providing small instances of insight into what is happening in the other pieces, but instead they are even more nondescript and generalized, offering very little to the viewer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The smaller paintings are so simplistic they actually border on being decorative, like something you might see for sale in a catalog of office art.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinkAYZN5C9W5Ob0d2-lhtXredwAbi-5brjz0GcGdx9fs7FUVuqLLRBFGp-3FSOTKeP1KjwFOIBq7PdwZ1-E3vGz1S_rmvXaTWohfC8HpKENAhCk8xw3uHZmNrhzA0z6mwXpJ6BqR0jTBI/s1600/over-seas-72.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" h5="true" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinkAYZN5C9W5Ob0d2-lhtXredwAbi-5brjz0GcGdx9fs7FUVuqLLRBFGp-3FSOTKeP1KjwFOIBq7PdwZ1-E3vGz1S_rmvXaTWohfC8HpKENAhCk8xw3uHZmNrhzA0z6mwXpJ6BqR0jTBI/s320/over-seas-72.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Overall, there is simply nothing in these paintings to distinguish themselves from anything else in the ocean of abstract paintings that exists today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order to be effective the paintings need to take a risk or depart from the standard formula of abstract oil painting in some way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There needs to be something unexpected about the work, otherwise it will continue to be completely forgettable. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>mkuhlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04592066268729442981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8368113811145285959.post-39598575822572138622011-01-04T13:59:00.000-08:002011-01-04T13:59:00.190-08:00No January ReviewsUnfortunately, I have to be out of town for this month's First Friday openings, so there will be no reviews. But I do plan on being back in full effect for February, so check back then! And also, don't forget to visit my other site, <a href="http://www.theprintperspective.com/">The Print Perspective</a>, to read about new and interesting developments in the world of printmaking. Happy new year!<br />
<br />
-Matt Kuhlmanmkuhlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04592066268729442981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8368113811145285959.post-87785026641135101502010-12-11T22:08:00.000-08:002010-12-11T22:08:31.533-08:00And then there were none...all I want to do is have some fun at the Beggar's Table...toys in the attic at the Belger...Bill and Ted's excellent bogus journey...serenity now!<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> I’ve never been to a First Fridays during the winter months, and now I know why.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems artists, like many other animals, hibernate during this time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wandered the deserted streets of the Crossroads trying in vain to find a show to review, but at almost every gallery I’d either seen the show already or determined that I couldn’t find much to say about the current show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So this month’s entry will be a bit of a departure from what I’ve been trying to do here, and it’s possible I’ll be taking January, and maybe February, off from reviewing until the showings pick up again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plus I’ll be really busy with my project site for a while, so be sure to keep up with The Print Perspective.</span> <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Taryn Leigh and Jeanette Powers at The Beggar’s Table</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3JJrySjV4BtQWUVOnpotL20mVsSix_UkkeXkfCIh8KVtAPzKK3I96jyGadeLweLpJbHYMbDwa8jADLz0gaNSZOEWvauYEygFiIPzpeGVYOz38_XyY8JjQFzMMjO1mgMpVleS0yEybgMw/s1600/post1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3JJrySjV4BtQWUVOnpotL20mVsSix_UkkeXkfCIh8KVtAPzKK3I96jyGadeLweLpJbHYMbDwa8jADLz0gaNSZOEWvauYEygFiIPzpeGVYOz38_XyY8JjQFzMMjO1mgMpVleS0yEybgMw/s320/post1.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One of the only new shows up this month was a two-person show at The Beggar’s Table Gallery, which was a combination of many small, quirky drawings by Taryn Leigh and a handful of large paintings by Jeanette Powers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Leigh’s work occupied the front of the gallery and was accented by collections of animal bones, feathers, a stuffed and mounted raccoon, and other odds and ends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The objects share a lot with Leigh’s work in that by themselves, each bone or feather may be somewhat interesting but not remarkable, but when it is part of a collection of similar items it is much more interesting than by itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Every drawing in Leigh’s show is very similar: they are all pen drawings, occasionally accented with a dash of color, on chipboard, in wooden thrift-store frames smaller than 8”x10” and painted green.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each image features a human figure with an animal head of some sort, and what really makes the show fun to look at is that it seems that no pose or animal was repeated.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is also a humorous element to most of the images.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Together, these qualities make the viewer interested in moving through the whole show and taking each piece in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFDJk0inr6f75gmpgiXPJKn2R51w6OT9jF30svWMBM5YctT_RK0uUhyzJxZCW5_LGDQMSGwgWKryWBD_UrPMSfX2sJJUVmrZb1bKqaZ5dpklOq9xhjcCHzllkZbEYyt_WWAidGy7NGahs/s1600/post2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="267" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFDJk0inr6f75gmpgiXPJKn2R51w6OT9jF30svWMBM5YctT_RK0uUhyzJxZCW5_LGDQMSGwgWKryWBD_UrPMSfX2sJJUVmrZb1bKqaZ5dpklOq9xhjcCHzllkZbEYyt_WWAidGy7NGahs/s400/post2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ordinarily the choice of materials might have bothered me, but the show was plain and simple on so many levels that it felt complete and worked well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her drawing style is similar to doodling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It doesn’t appear that a lot of time or thought is spent on each drawing, but rather the focus is on getting the idea down with direct, simple lines using a ballpoint pen and quickly coming up with a new idea to draw.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a fun show to see, but still, when I see work done on non-archival material I can’t help but think how decomposed it will look two years from now.</span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj303m4doeQkHyBKHOX_cfNxpSmyf6o5ITydPto5C8XDOJ_rU-rb8eTv38JqtDXtkqLWwcw0eFdASuK9SF-qxY7iFzniRPc_mCODXLVqhYu1Ae42SYFHu0-lbJXkUD11gHHcIJx7uurXtA/s1600/post3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj303m4doeQkHyBKHOX_cfNxpSmyf6o5ITydPto5C8XDOJ_rU-rb8eTv38JqtDXtkqLWwcw0eFdASuK9SF-qxY7iFzniRPc_mCODXLVqhYu1Ae42SYFHu0-lbJXkUD11gHHcIJx7uurXtA/s320/post3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Jeanette Powers’ paintings are not as thematically unified as Leigh’s pieces, but share many qualities in common with her portion of the show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of the paintings attempt to approach the subject realistically, while most of them fall into the same day-dreamy realm of doodling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Caricatures of human figures are mixed with text, nonsensical objects such as flowers with eyeballs, and other figures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She clearly demonstrates the ability to realistically render the figure in three of the paintings, but in the others opts for a less-structured approach, resulting in what happen to be the more interesting images.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOxhKnNnQETLel2OxTMDl7ipTxc_kyZ1_9AaWz67lzvSwyP2vzL1q6EjIDMDxiGeCnVruRjAfQfcdByFZSt1irDj1QNAbKG6Uf0vqmT6VC2LWGdLckCybtDzUTC8Ze2Teaf8wsyPXDrVI/s1600/post4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOxhKnNnQETLel2OxTMDl7ipTxc_kyZ1_9AaWz67lzvSwyP2vzL1q6EjIDMDxiGeCnVruRjAfQfcdByFZSt1irDj1QNAbKG6Uf0vqmT6VC2LWGdLckCybtDzUTC8Ze2Teaf8wsyPXDrVI/s320/post4.jpg" width="245" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The “unrealistic” paintings lack refinement in color and rendering, but you can tell that some soul was put into making it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is possible to feel a sense of the artist’s personality and emotions in the work, which can often be more valuable than the ability to render something cleanly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I should clarify that in calling Powers’ paintings unrefined I’m only referring to the brushwork and the color choice, which is very bright.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Using paint straight out of the tube can work in specific cases, but overdoing it gives the painting a gaudy look, similar to a child’s crayon drawing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The one element that keeps these works afloat for me is her inventiveness in creating the images.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I noticed on one piece that showed five women gathered together that the pattern in the background was actually patterned paper collaged onto the surface.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The lines of these shapes are then carried down through the figures, making the image much more thought-provoking to look at than if it lacked this element.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Leigh and Powers do not appear to be career artists that regularly show in galleries, and that is why I like First Fridays.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The full spectrum of shows can be found, from high school artists to nationally established artists, and shows like this one provide something fun and different from the usual gallery show.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">KCAI in 3D</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>KCAI in 3D has been on display at the Belger Arts Center for a while, and while I thought it had some quality work I avoided reviewing it because it is a group show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All of the artists in the show are graduates and/or faculty of the Kansas City Art Institute, and what I find nice about the show is that there are so many different approaches used in the sculptures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some schools push a certain style or concept in the work that comes out of it, but that does not seem to be the case here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1fSykeCWCqEuyJX6QAqB_eaCigG4Bzrn-F-BBx4FKhEv7Hjvdlzg59Japrv6PzPNtaVnyiFxIXaKvLqGGgkdKQFUbjrFsV3t2s5-IODcTIKv8j_pKsSWlvDFd1roRiNgfvITWyfUFFK0/s1600/post+5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1fSykeCWCqEuyJX6QAqB_eaCigG4Bzrn-F-BBx4FKhEv7Hjvdlzg59Japrv6PzPNtaVnyiFxIXaKvLqGGgkdKQFUbjrFsV3t2s5-IODcTIKv8j_pKsSWlvDFd1roRiNgfvITWyfUFFK0/s320/post+5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The most attention-grabbing piece in the show is a bull sitting on a table strewn with broken china.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What makes the work attention grabbing is that walking into the room all you see is the head of the bull mounted on a partition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then as you walk back into the space you realize that the rest of the bull and the piece is on the other side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is an interesting surprise, but I think the reference made is too straightforward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bull in a china shop is a common expression, but what is the artist trying to say through this reference?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Aside from the surprise factor, is there a reason why the bull is sticking its head through a wall?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t think up any good answers to these questions, and if the piece was displayed without the surprise of most of it being concealed it wouldn’t have many redeeming qualities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCR9pbkP1hqOFdB9w4D_jP7YQ0AKPOEZ4apadLxTFj4miMdBsqug0HaZXPA-fKyd8yZvoqnCyq73tQNUhbwtr_V7vblqD1-FBDmNZLAnNEQPR_AYz4WG1gabxHftv1jtcrCJGV01fk2Ds/s1600/post6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCR9pbkP1hqOFdB9w4D_jP7YQ0AKPOEZ4apadLxTFj4miMdBsqug0HaZXPA-fKyd8yZvoqnCyq73tQNUhbwtr_V7vblqD1-FBDmNZLAnNEQPR_AYz4WG1gabxHftv1jtcrCJGV01fk2Ds/s320/post6.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Some other work in the show that immediately grabs your attention is a series of three-dimensional portraits by Paul Anthony Smith that poke their heads away from the wall and peer towards the viewer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their “frame” is styled after the picture windows around the presidents on paper money, and indeed Abraham Lincoln, Obama, and other stately looking characters are the ones portrayed in the sculptures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The style works very well in creating a sense of these being old artifacts with a Victorian era feel to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The piece that brought the series together for me was an old, distressed version of one of the portraits that had been broken into pieces, the shards left falling on the floor beneath it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It moves the work beyond just creating an object to creating a scene that the viewer can experience, and also communicates an idea of history constantly being deconstructed and reconstructed that seems to be confirmed by the other pieces.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVLw5MU_-NduXa1rUBsRm2WkUYZymyw58CMAhEXxGn6AvWtaNy6XvS2JJk2Vq9ytOgYgEcIRTLzIYVXi0gS3Mw0JmRE6NmRTqJOYxXa1TkQd7UQhzPvh65V_671EXQ4FilBv0jKZXHfvc/s1600/post7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVLw5MU_-NduXa1rUBsRm2WkUYZymyw58CMAhEXxGn6AvWtaNy6XvS2JJk2Vq9ytOgYgEcIRTLzIYVXi0gS3Mw0JmRE6NmRTqJOYxXa1TkQd7UQhzPvh65V_671EXQ4FilBv0jKZXHfvc/s320/post7.jpg" width="234" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On the topic of construction, I really enjoy the four sculptures by Keith Whitecloud Simpson.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His work is the most modestly-sized of the show with each piece standing not much higher than a wine bottle, but they are very intricately detailed works that juxtaposed the human form with construction scaffolding and armature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They could be interpreted as either a statement of building icons and identities for ourselves, the hollowness of cultural icons, the influence of modern society on the development of the human, or a number of other things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The exact meaning doesn’t really matter though, because Simpson has chosen imagery that is universally understood and executed it beautifully.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Ruin” by Terry Karson interestingly follows a construction-related theme, but does it in monumental scale.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Using discarded chipboard from beer packaging he constructed three ten to twelve foot tall pillars that, from a distance, appear to be only a tarnished white color.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A closer inspection reveals what the forms are made of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first thing it brings to mind is that alcohol is a cornerstone of society and the economy, yet also a major source for societal destabilization, leading to ruin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixpX8xFh1paVsWJHq7acrSfgH5HZ-Lx39wVZAwvKbJKocZSKXmlP0QR4-lnkgHREVdTq6TpselBq4Fdu9WoQxUyxTBwFnd0dqFb14HZEvmcNaGU28wcj8M9hosaFbO1_5WUJ-H56nWGek/s1600/post8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixpX8xFh1paVsWJHq7acrSfgH5HZ-Lx39wVZAwvKbJKocZSKXmlP0QR4-lnkgHREVdTq6TpselBq4Fdu9WoQxUyxTBwFnd0dqFb14HZEvmcNaGU28wcj8M9hosaFbO1_5WUJ-H56nWGek/s320/post8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There is also the fact that a commonly recycled material was used to make the work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are we all recycling with the intention of saving the earth, but only perpetuating a system of production and consumption that will destroy the earth no matter how much we recycle?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Possibly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The main thing that evokes the idea of referencing recycled material is that the forms themselves resemble compacted bales of recyclables.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps he thinks that these are the best things that our society has to offer, and hopes that environmentalism will be the one legacy that will transcend us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At any rate, they are simple forms, but I find them interesting to inspect and think about.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">From the Melting Pot into the Fire: Contemporary Ceramics in Israel</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ceramics are not typically the kind of work I find exciting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I hear the word ‘ceramics’, I think of plates and coffee mugs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when I hear the term ‘ceramic art’, I think of something that maybe my mom or grandmother might drag me to at some folk museum in central Missouri.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you have similar impressions of ceramics this show is a must see, because these Israeli artists do things with ceramics that I could never imagine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFB3f2hZe5GfjYzPp65a9QwA7_2O-mfjKapa3hNnmDCl2CPWMB5U_Po4n71RQMumAKd1ZczweS8fRqXZ2clYjQWHgLdkrs51UEHZy6D5yY4La7xc-3c4O77MJ9w9p0uJnXvcu1luKyvQg/s1600/post9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFB3f2hZe5GfjYzPp65a9QwA7_2O-mfjKapa3hNnmDCl2CPWMB5U_Po4n71RQMumAKd1ZczweS8fRqXZ2clYjQWHgLdkrs51UEHZy6D5yY4La7xc-3c4O77MJ9w9p0uJnXvcu1luKyvQg/s320/post9.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A lot of the works dealt with water, and two of my favorite pieces were among these.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One piece featured several house forms floating in a tank of water, freely suspended and able to be moved in any direction at any time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is simply a clever idea that has a clear message.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew that the artist was expressing an idea of home as a transitory place without even reading the statement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is something about the houses being self contained but not permanently stationed that evokes this idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Perhaps it’s because I have trouble staying put myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would be nice to see a work like this executed on a grander scale, maybe with a larger pool of water or with some currents being created, but nonetheless it is an interesting, inventive piece.</span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA_9jB49wCHTD8YCgNvDafcuPGyv0PmVrTm1hp_7KntnCRzo7c7Ib9mRh89rDn7uCuot-PloYhmb3NbFhL2SD4mVRnOdBX1E0NSkrsg5WuLm2WdVasrhu0yWgkghsW-LH-Yy0VrjAxgXk/s1600/post10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA_9jB49wCHTD8YCgNvDafcuPGyv0PmVrTm1hp_7KntnCRzo7c7Ib9mRh89rDn7uCuot-PloYhmb3NbFhL2SD4mVRnOdBX1E0NSkrsg5WuLm2WdVasrhu0yWgkghsW-LH-Yy0VrjAxgXk/s320/post10.jpg" width="226" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Perhaps my favorite piece of the show was “Moat” by Ronit Zor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From a distance of more than six feet, “Moat” appears to be nothing more than a set of ceramic panels mounted on the wall that descend slightly to the right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But up close you find that the panels are actually narrow, hollow vessels filled with water and enhanced with small structural-looking wires and sticks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In his statement, Zor says that “Moat” references the ancient aqueducts, and that while it delivers life-giving water it also creates a physical barrier between places.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dualities are always great sources for work, and Zor expresses his ideas in an elegant way. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Some of the other great pieces in the exhibit showcase the power of subtlety in visual art.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ceramic seems to be a great media for doing this because it is all one tone and relies on the lighting to create contrast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are very few unexciting pieces in this show, and it’s pretty incredible to see so many diverse results come out of the same medium.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpHHjM9Rz7zV0Am9akeyTy6qKu8IFaAIPaDbLgn-sfkhb9yeiqqHd-mFoMXcEKil-I4uY_efzXC6WVAguA7UWtcW7z2OIM_Ow3UlHaoGNmvgx5zEcDdTs6FR5h9n6jNJjFSu0uSQE_Ss/s1600/post11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="427" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFpHHjM9Rz7zV0Am9akeyTy6qKu8IFaAIPaDbLgn-sfkhb9yeiqqHd-mFoMXcEKil-I4uY_efzXC6WVAguA7UWtcW7z2OIM_Ow3UlHaoGNmvgx5zEcDdTs6FR5h9n6jNJjFSu0uSQE_Ss/s640/post11.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Perceptions of Time: Examining the Past, Present, and Future at Arts Incubator</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Cocoon Gallery at the Arts Incubator has a small group show of works that examine the concept of time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sarabeth Dunton-Diamond chose to approach this topic by creating works similar to a comic book or storyboard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two of her pieces look as if they use illustrations from old instruction manuals for the source material.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In one a woman installs a set of shelves on the wall, and in the other a man breaks apart a rock to extract some smaller, unidentifiable piece from it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These images consist of 5 picture cells each, and what makes them interesting is the amount of precision involved in creating them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx3Qjj7dczL1uFRMH05TSpqyf37cpW88Fp6fVaEFbeypAEzLqnAqPtOLurNMubn8uqcGzoe6eYrHKMGclQtu0YHovOtUXU-z5JRqG805dUrU9uZgGuDOqR3EoBuC55aIxMzZW-nqzpY64/s1600/post14.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx3Qjj7dczL1uFRMH05TSpqyf37cpW88Fp6fVaEFbeypAEzLqnAqPtOLurNMubn8uqcGzoe6eYrHKMGclQtu0YHovOtUXU-z5JRqG805dUrU9uZgGuDOqR3EoBuC55aIxMzZW-nqzpY64/s1600/post14.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The 5 cells are borderless, with the negative space being filled in by short, repetitive marker strokes that create a striped pattern across the images.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The figures and objects are drawn in ink and show a great amount of skill in drawing them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And these ink figures and marker-patterned background fill the space to create a perfectly clean square on the page.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is also nice about the marker strokes is that they create a visual rhythm that carries through the work, so it is almost possible to feel a passage of time through the images with each stroke of the marker representing a moment in time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7SD0yDF6vo7myTtf7MeUZ9OWGTiEadSaFsXRxlyxnWzQ0HPyLLEAKzQ9XJ4gro36el_96MXhKshHSqvo7S_tqg3sTA7HFZuA7kadIMwhoOKNm8QG1WSsNNrCgsfhnPdmGPnIE-C63AL4/s1600/post15.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7SD0yDF6vo7myTtf7MeUZ9OWGTiEadSaFsXRxlyxnWzQ0HPyLLEAKzQ9XJ4gro36el_96MXhKshHSqvo7S_tqg3sTA7HFZuA7kadIMwhoOKNm8QG1WSsNNrCgsfhnPdmGPnIE-C63AL4/s1600/post15.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This marker pattern is also present in her main contribution to the show, a series of more than 75 roughly 5”x5” drawings depicting three different series of alterations of the same starting image.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the far left of each progression is a single rock form in the middle of the paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first one is slowly eroded by other geometric forms, which then becomes smaller to the point of almost vanishing in the final frame.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the second progression the rock becomes smaller as other small pebbles appear around it, until the large rock is finally gone and the frame is completely filled with small pebbles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the third the rock sprouts crystal formations around it before eventually being reduced to a small pile of dust.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPg6qe9CNQvypUk4Km-RuEsO76LwexSSjW_jPeUD1C1UIEJcZbudlZOw-Ow8KqW5bvCPiBHhVqWURZ5e9p8H7orb0cZdN_J7jr89TJspsncTPSg84XSs1d5SbeG2euFuqUSgUxabPHfVY/s1600/post16.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPg6qe9CNQvypUk4Km-RuEsO76LwexSSjW_jPeUD1C1UIEJcZbudlZOw-Ow8KqW5bvCPiBHhVqWURZ5e9p8H7orb0cZdN_J7jr89TJspsncTPSg84XSs1d5SbeG2euFuqUSgUxabPHfVY/s320/post16.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There are several things that work well in these drawings: the idea of several different outcomes from a single starting point, the progressions change reference very universal principles such as growth, erosion, and destruction, and these progressions create a good rhythm by not heading in only one direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The second series where the rock turns into many pebbles is the most linear, but in the other to there is a climax of growth or change somewhere in the middle, at which point the change moves towards the fading out of the objects.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These, too, are very nicely drawn, and in two of the progressions the marker lines take on a new role by creating patterns towards the end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In all it is an interesting piece to look at that makes you want to see every panel in it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Another artist in the show, Diane Henk, has some pieces that are hard to engage with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are primarily made of drafting film, which is a thin, frosted-looking sheet of vellum, and most of them consist of several layers of this material with subtle marks and sewing incorporated into them, stapled directly onto the wall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If these pieces were framed it could be a little easier to enjoy them, but with their appearance being so naked on the wall they are not much more interesting than stapling a plain sheet of paper to the wall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiApmLXGAT3qMTYfIKEKtIKvQRnkIXSN4SENL77q4FxlcP-icQZ_-f_OZfpPsruDjsw0q_p40IOBFVJUK4OSyFqR6NEbmKpX9an2CAWKYAW2bj5txK0RLkOfQaSKloXUqz2sJD3C0MVBWc/s1600/post17.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="234" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiApmLXGAT3qMTYfIKEKtIKvQRnkIXSN4SENL77q4FxlcP-icQZ_-f_OZfpPsruDjsw0q_p40IOBFVJUK4OSyFqR6NEbmKpX9an2CAWKYAW2bj5txK0RLkOfQaSKloXUqz2sJD3C0MVBWc/s320/post17.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In some portions a small rectangle roughly the size of a single line of text is cut out to reveal a layer of plain drafting film beneath, and through the top layer there are lines that seem to indicate text.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can imagine that the idea is something related to history and information being lost in the modern world, with these nearly blank documents that are void of information except for faint reminders of what was once recorded remaining, but that’s really straining my imagination to come up with that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The overwhelming sense of the work is that it looks and feels like something that would be encountered in an office, not the most thought-provoking environment to reference, and because the pieces appear to be so plain and minimal it is easier to pass by them than to contemplate them.</span></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ-aDKAri2ZDGWKniDIjjLEfI9XPdoqEYhpevVdSZR2Pmp9K3NGJuBVtfsCM_p3xTvLa_UW6eOgqmo0F6PADyGYmOI5sWECrRvenR_5zVXosOKgpZndBOG1nTc3MlwbcaAGC-gh9mmxLQ/s1600/post18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" n4="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZ-aDKAri2ZDGWKniDIjjLEfI9XPdoqEYhpevVdSZR2Pmp9K3NGJuBVtfsCM_p3xTvLa_UW6eOgqmo0F6PADyGYmOI5sWECrRvenR_5zVXosOKgpZndBOG1nTc3MlwbcaAGC-gh9mmxLQ/s320/post18.jpg" width="222" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">She also has a larger installation consisting of several small square pouches of the same drafting film that have shredded paper in them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This goes along with the idea of losing information in a modern business environment by displaying destroyed information, but again, the presentation does not invite the viewer to think about what it means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is arranged in a grid with all the same sized pouches, all appearing to have relatively the same contents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Including some color into the contents of the pouches might have made it more intriguing, but they are as minimalistic and bland as the smaller pieces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Ana Maria Hernando at the Kemper Gallery</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One artist who knows how to use paper well is Ana Maria Hernando.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Her show has been on display for a few months, and I don’t have much to say about it other than it is amazing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She has many framed works that resemble mandalas or flowers, and they include many patterned cut paper forms that rise away from the piece adding a third dimension to the work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>However, the main attraction of the show is a large installation in the middle of the floor with fabric flower forms among glass discs with floral imagery on them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a strong sense of spirituality and nature in the work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I makes me think of Buddhism a lot by using similar devices, with the floor installation resembling a pond or stream with lotus flowers in it, and the framed images looking like mandalas that also incorporate lotus images.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I doubt that Buddhism is the source of inspiration for the work because it is not a popular religion among Spanish speakers, but regardless of the source the work is great and should not be missed. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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</div>mkuhlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04592066268729442981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8368113811145285959.post-45012865913377866132010-11-07T09:58:00.000-08:002010-11-07T10:02:28.783-08:00The zen of Rich Bowman...Steppenwolf II: the struggle between the individual and mass production continues...halfway is no good, it's all or nothing...don't go there, Sickman!...full circle at Krzyz...finding the 5th dimension at Bespoke<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ah, November, soon to be December.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the leaves have fallen from the trees and the recent chill in the air is a reminder of the long, cold winter that will soon be here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>November is even more difficult for a non-Republican in Kansas during an election year.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seems that voting for any other party in this state is the definition of futility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But what better way to escape thinking about the greed-driven Sam Brownback and his oncoming pseudo-theocracy than to get lost in some wonderful paintings? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">BEST IN SHOW - Rich Bowman at the Blue Gallery</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVNTshIuB9L0iGSWeQuwA1hC5-dxGkB8GzVP1AeyPhGM0YlYmv8pEmJ4TJOs9JGSyHUKgHhktVXRi90ObcRFGqf4RjoZQfaOmZLsPsmVsnqcAAIQ5uuTGe3lQG3D4-ZrbtdNX9PTkJYt0/s1600/DSC_0016.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVNTshIuB9L0iGSWeQuwA1hC5-dxGkB8GzVP1AeyPhGM0YlYmv8pEmJ4TJOs9JGSyHUKgHhktVXRi90ObcRFGqf4RjoZQfaOmZLsPsmVsnqcAAIQ5uuTGe3lQG3D4-ZrbtdNX9PTkJYt0/s320/DSC_0016.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>One of Rich Bowman’s paintings was granted the cover of the Pitch’s Crossroads Exhibition Guide, and it proves my belief that art must be seen in person to appreciate it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the guide cover, his painting “Clinton County Rise” looks more or less like a standard landscape painting with the red rays of the setting sun glinting off the fields silhouetting the darkened forms of trees.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a well-photographed reproduction, but being less than 1/16<sup>th</sup> the size of the actual work there is no way it could possibly capture how magnificent the painting is.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Bowman’s paintings are the type you can get lost in, and there are several factors that contribute to this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First is the size of his work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The aforementioned painting measures 52” by 52”, and even it is modestly sized compared to some of his other paintings that have measurements no smaller than 6’ in either direction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even when the work itself is modestly sized, he still fits in huge landscapes using panoramic views and scaling the scenes down appropriately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE68w_47YCtiaxcJLJZp558Z_rlx3D27d-NueiOPh0Ng6kgl1akRUpAJF8XScOzn2oAAhthofZ7HCpcf0IAO2Lf00trpZIogLnNpvYKtwDBa77kFGgDM80AfeOosBFvEYxLYdVOl9yfnI/s1600/DSC_0013.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE68w_47YCtiaxcJLJZp558Z_rlx3D27d-NueiOPh0Ng6kgl1akRUpAJF8XScOzn2oAAhthofZ7HCpcf0IAO2Lf00trpZIogLnNpvYKtwDBa77kFGgDM80AfeOosBFvEYxLYdVOl9yfnI/s320/DSC_0013.JPG" width="214" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It is important when painting any scenes this large is including the right amount of detail.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most common tendency is to simplify everything because it’s quicker, but if the whole painting is overly simplified then it offers the viewer nothing more than what can be seen in a quick glance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On the other hand, if too much attention to detail is given to the entire painting it can become overwhelming, leaving the viewer without any distinct focal points and unsure of where they should be looking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bowman is able to repeatedly find the perfect balance between scale and detail in his paintings, giving the viewer a potentially long visual journey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The more sparse areas are still interesting enough to examine, but they are not so loaded with information as to distract from the busier highlights.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I call his paintings landscapes, but it is the sky that actually dominates most of his compositions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Large cloud formations are captured under dynamic lighting situations, and in the mixes of clouds and empty sky he creates a wealth of subtle detail that is accented with areas of intensely painted information.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His painting “Scottsdale Eve” is an excellent example of his skillful use of subtlety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A majority of the painting is a muted gray haze and empty sky, but he instills a richness in these areas with soft gradations of color that create a believable environment for the highlighted feature of the cloud formation to exist in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Looking at his paintings is equal to the sensation of looking at a breathtaking sunset in real life.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The key element that ties all of Bowman’s paintings together is his understanding of light.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The brilliant dashes of highlights that show the path of the light as it cuts through the scenes are perfect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is as if he’s not actually painting the scenes themselves, but they are only a framework for him to carry the light through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even in his painting “Rolling Along” where there is not a strong light source, it is the atmospheric glow of the sun’s light diffusing on a cloudy day that elevates to being more than a typical landscape scene.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were only two paintings in the show that used a more typical overhead light source, and indeed they didn’t really compare to the other works with fiery streaks of orange on the horizon or glowing orbs of clouds seen in the final moments of the day.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPqc7tz5AunkoKFxxXdyZVHwd2xwpiBvCTr3qxAji4XLbp_wmMYSwBkIJ_1biqAY2aHycWuhyu_h2h2EQDJ3XTdrV14MWON4zhJrya9u8dyrB_mOPwe4Xb-hGLHV4MDzd8dw0-dkb8d6g/s1600/DSC_0002.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPqc7tz5AunkoKFxxXdyZVHwd2xwpiBvCTr3qxAji4XLbp_wmMYSwBkIJ_1biqAY2aHycWuhyu_h2h2EQDJ3XTdrV14MWON4zhJrya9u8dyrB_mOPwe4Xb-hGLHV4MDzd8dw0-dkb8d6g/s400/DSC_0002.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Sunrises and sunsets are two of the most beautiful things that can be seen on a daily basis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The sights and colors that can be seen during these times are unique and fleeting, disappearing right before our eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bowman is able to capture snapshots of these scenes that accurately capture the power and wonder behind them by doing this using paint instead of a camera, where the artistic understanding and appreciation of these scenes can show through.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I recommend seeing these paintings in person to understand the full scope of his work, but his works are also available on his website <a href="http://www.bowmangallery.com/mbx/">here</a>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Jim Hesse at the Leedy-Voulkos</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Jim Hesse’s work at the Leedy-Voulkos projects an impression of him being a very unique character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From his assemblages of found materials, mostly old metal components from unknown origins, I imagine Hesse as an elderly man in the country with a white beard, trucker cap, flannel shirt, and overalls.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either that or he obtained all these materials from someone who looks like that, because typically the only place to find a lot of materials like these is in a scrap heap on a farm.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKGOOeNJn7ChPZm8Oy2ObNuQwKX8Q1zHaoKTYnMVGikfxolNvB03gW2yiwMuwQDQvKHwn4hS8fMh5BXeiNXLZlopNdhW2C4yokozMSOCy0dLf1AI9acae_R1QUspoTGRvou0QtNCi99Fw/s1600/DSC_0026.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKGOOeNJn7ChPZm8Oy2ObNuQwKX8Q1zHaoKTYnMVGikfxolNvB03gW2yiwMuwQDQvKHwn4hS8fMh5BXeiNXLZlopNdhW2C4yokozMSOCy0dLf1AI9acae_R1QUspoTGRvou0QtNCi99Fw/s200/DSC_0026.JPG" width="133" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Most of the work on display are grids of metal scraps that have been patched together with rivets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of the scraps have designs on them, some are chunks of old license plates, but most of them are unrecognizable pieces of metal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a few places metal objects such as house address numbers are fixed into the surface.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the plain pieces of metal have splotches of paint on them, but it’s not obvious if this paint was applied by the artist or if it is from the metal’s original use.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdG4KIqvNQTMRFDwQPc7P1qjfofha9597scmt7Tl3yDaGmOFX00MPPEL6po2dwPH7t8o0aUcnydOtPgUZDeDERRCk_tZEFtcWhUYePNsI-YcvmqttxX4Aenr8bH0D-qee38J4UGe6Xiww/s1600/DSC_0027.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdG4KIqvNQTMRFDwQPc7P1qjfofha9597scmt7Tl3yDaGmOFX00MPPEL6po2dwPH7t8o0aUcnydOtPgUZDeDERRCk_tZEFtcWhUYePNsI-YcvmqttxX4Aenr8bH0D-qee38J4UGe6Xiww/s200/DSC_0027.JPG" width="133" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Looking at one of these metal works individually is pretty interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The viewer is forced to think about the components of the assemblage abstractly, and once this happens there is plenty to inspect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are several hundred rivets holding the patchwork pattern together, and all of the small dings and imperfections in the metal become part of a collage that tells a story about the history of the materials.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if a piece of the assemblage is recognizable as an object, it doesn’t stand out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Presenting the materials in this way makes the viewer consider the physicality of the work, which ascribes a new meaning to the otherwise random collection of metal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is like a story quilt, one that tells a tale about a rural industrial/agricultural way of life that is disappearing and being replaced by the sleek, the shiny, and the new.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The trouble is that there is not only one of these assemblages in the show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are about ten of these works, all very similarly constructed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is like seeing the same piece reconstructed multiple times, which causes the viewer’s mind to drift back out of looking abstractly at the materials.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They want to see something unique in each artwork, and when the pieces are very similar they begin to think in terms of what it is actually made out of, and it loses its magic.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once you start thinking in terms of labels – I see a license plate, part of a sign, rivets, a tin ceiling tile, part of a car fender, etc. – the piece becomes no more interesting than those objects are by themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On one grid he creates some relief forms by raising parts of the surface, but it’s not enough of an addition to make it interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another piece features some of the metal scraps arranged more freehandedly on a mostly plain metal surface.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is a step closer to successfully reworking the materials with some variety, but in the context of the rest of the show it isn’t enough.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When viewed together, each piece goes from being a story quilt back to a pile of metal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqRUwG9pYElqWi65QLJ21mJxZSjnP23gv3DoA999QxfoUKXOho11kFO6Ipc3jv0_pIOZ1TfS7QBBjiHYQJYgRrgf3SVKGpJ_70-sJSV0OrhgreBRLdQSHwLIIXQmSCuCLiRcNAl5zHCLY/s1600/DSC_0037.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqRUwG9pYElqWi65QLJ21mJxZSjnP23gv3DoA999QxfoUKXOho11kFO6Ipc3jv0_pIOZ1TfS7QBBjiHYQJYgRrgf3SVKGpJ_70-sJSV0OrhgreBRLdQSHwLIIXQmSCuCLiRcNAl5zHCLY/s320/DSC_0037.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The pieces in the other portion of Hesse’s show, a collection of quirky birdhouse structures also made from found materials, have no problems competing with each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The origin of the materials does not come to mind because it is taking in the new structure that was created out of them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each one is constructed to hold a different sized bird egg, and while some might consider them more folk art than fine art, they are very nice structures to look at.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are so many differences in how each one is constructed, each one retains a very distinct character, and draws you into thinking about the object and its purpose rather than what it’s made of.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Diane Boone at Studio b</span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Apparently Studio b is the place to be if you’re a fauvist painter.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In September I reviewed Anne Garney’s paintings there, and this month is Diane Boone, a painter who works much more closely to the style of Matisse than the previous show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unfortunately, I’m pretty lukewarm on Matisse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just can’t appreciate some of his works from my modern perspective, but he also has some other work that I can enjoy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like Matisse, Boone has some parts of her work that I respond well to, and some parts that I don’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtlJsdvUacG6O56AxBIPrhe6u9V84DiZmh1ahx48NUdvCF13Z708T7aDVUHhw-yVWPeL03qmn03Zad-Sgqf-I_xWP7f6sXF7rtvIAIkPFpPRMrkgj-z7S1-lsOAaytBcrHZNi6Gkc8jY0/s1600/DSC_0043.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtlJsdvUacG6O56AxBIPrhe6u9V84DiZmh1ahx48NUdvCF13Z708T7aDVUHhw-yVWPeL03qmn03Zad-Sgqf-I_xWP7f6sXF7rtvIAIkPFpPRMrkgj-z7S1-lsOAaytBcrHZNi6Gkc8jY0/s320/DSC_0043.JPG" width="214" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The first thing I notice when looking at the work is the very active brushstrokes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She uses very large brushes to quickly block out shapes in the composition, and true to the fauvist style does it using very saturated color mixtures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On a few of her paintings she goes on to define these areas with outlines and developing more of a definite structure throughout the piece.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These were the ones that I respond to better because they have definition and feel complete.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there are several pieces where the definition lacks, making the painting feel unresolved. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Boone’s two paintings with houses in them show a contrast of the resolved and unresolved methods in her work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In both of these paintings the house feels grounded.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has a definite structure that we can easily understand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They may not be exquisitely painted, but they’re believable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But then the foreground consists of many formless, swirling, multicolored brush strokes that are harder to deal with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The color choices seem random, and there is no detail work to give us a sense of space or form to the land that this house should be resting on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It creates a lot of visual confusion by creating an unbelievable space for a believable object to exist in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Among all the landscapes, some are better than others, but they are for the most part dominated by this sort of non-committed mark making.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The lack of definition gives them an unfinished look, and the raw colors bring to mind a child’s crayon drawings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are not bad qualities in and of themselves, but they are qualities that need to be well integrated into a piece to work, and most of the paintings don’t have the unity necessary to make it believable.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEdYDiORSllSfdd5n_itrUoViHnrVunKgElNRf48ofKaIRM7C9AnEUzVXJgG7Zm7SRjwwzcTFg7hZu0C9uIO0BxTdMQrPS4vMXu-_Omsnf0HjkLPkWNicMBC1aRsUpHNKoYdQ_iwG5Aj0/s1600/diane+boone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEdYDiORSllSfdd5n_itrUoViHnrVunKgElNRf48ofKaIRM7C9AnEUzVXJgG7Zm7SRjwwzcTFg7hZu0C9uIO0BxTdMQrPS4vMXu-_Omsnf0HjkLPkWNicMBC1aRsUpHNKoYdQ_iwG5Aj0/s200/diane+boone.jpg" width="148" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In addition to the fauvist paintings there are a few purely abstract paintings are perhaps the most interesting part of the show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Unlike her other work, abstract paintings don’t present the viewer with a space that is to be made sense of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I did notice that Boone’s brushwork instilled a lot of motion into the work, which in the case of a landscape doesn’t help it become more believable, but is a great asset in an abstract painting where the artist needs to make the viewer’s eyes move using only the brush.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The abstract works seem to reference the natural scenes she’s dealing with in most of her work, but it is a better approach for her free-form, emotion driven style.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Linda Sickman at {:m gallery</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I have to admit I was driven to Linda Sickman’s show by an unbearable curiosity to see what exactly “Gourd Work” meant.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And quite literally, she makes artwork out of gourds.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghftuS0rCbykj1Hhy4DOg6lVJk7eBAbOWFAUmhY_ZduKkNRHc6ynaZkMiI4EFPzq2A0Seh4DSjIdS4aE6Cc_VKm7IqJ1BzConqbzy5YofPnwS8jC6tpvKk4J75wx_1mSDYwOg4gfm3jsw/s1600/DSC_0056.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghftuS0rCbykj1Hhy4DOg6lVJk7eBAbOWFAUmhY_ZduKkNRHc6ynaZkMiI4EFPzq2A0Seh4DSjIdS4aE6Cc_VKm7IqJ1BzConqbzy5YofPnwS8jC6tpvKk4J75wx_1mSDYwOg4gfm3jsw/s200/DSC_0056.JPG" width="133" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>To be precise, she makes gourds into imitations of Native American pottery, which was actually pretty cool because the color and texture of the gourds makes it actually look like an old pot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The pattern work is very intricate and well done, and while it’s no comparison to the actual pots of the southwest Native Americans, it is still pretty interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I saw an exhibit of southwestern pots a few years ago and was floored by the intricate psychedelic designs they used.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sickman’s gourds use parts of what I saw in those pots in a more simple patterned way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When she uses animal images they strongly resemble traditional images, but in a slightly modernized way that avoids crossing over into being cheesy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7-cRlDbByGLKw3dN8l1-ENyH6AHXgUdIU6jSZMsNtsRgtQg4p5fIxGXGFXMcNW_k0NZcEMJLSA8LFz6Y8pmb1td0_58MFZqp6d4xRC3kMXEivUSZRLwHmMlXo3-Sf3gt_x_Hfbb__XtU/s1600/DSC_0054.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7-cRlDbByGLKw3dN8l1-ENyH6AHXgUdIU6jSZMsNtsRgtQg4p5fIxGXGFXMcNW_k0NZcEMJLSA8LFz6Y8pmb1td0_58MFZqp6d4xRC3kMXEivUSZRLwHmMlXo3-Sf3gt_x_Hfbb__XtU/s320/DSC_0054.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I do have some reservations about part of the show, which consists of several “Indian heads”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t have a problem with non-native people incorporating traditional imagery into their work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Native art is wonderful and should be used as a source of inspiration for modern artists, but these works are borderline offensive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They obviously aren’t meant to be so, but creating decorative caricatures of people from another culture just isn’t respectful.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It plays on old stereotypes that while not negative, shouldn’t be perpetuated, especially by a person not of that culture.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Todd Meyers at Krzyz Photo </span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Krzyz Photo is a funny little space, I never know what to expect out of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve seen some very good shows there, but then some months it is closed, and in September I went there only to find that there was no actual art show but several vendors selling various handmade items.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not even sure how ‘Krzyz’ is pronounced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this month the space housed an interesting collection of mixed media works by Todd Meyers.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid0fUA0emNnWM1yWHcP8RiAE1T1oemvNp3PrJtdfQo03uqWwadPBhqRH6nHQA9h5oeMHnTKGQcKPComgk4jg3einpZNqV6EtUyiy74DdXYXKkdu5cbyJMiSgJNI4lzucre8dWXXiFRPIQ/s1600/DSC_0064.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid0fUA0emNnWM1yWHcP8RiAE1T1oemvNp3PrJtdfQo03uqWwadPBhqRH6nHQA9h5oeMHnTKGQcKPComgk4jg3einpZNqV6EtUyiy74DdXYXKkdu5cbyJMiSgJNI4lzucre8dWXXiFRPIQ/s320/DSC_0064.JPG" width="212" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Meyers’s work uses an old idea that I played around with in the past: spontaneity - specifically, the spontaneous mark-making ability of water. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He applies thin watercolor washes on heavy paper and allows the material to form different marks and features as it dries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There doesn’t seem to be much reworking or layering the paint either, however it looks after one shot is how it looks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What makes this effective is that there is also an element of control involved in the process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He doesn’t just allow the water to go wherever it pleases, he masks off certain areas for it to run free, creating a contrast between spontaneity and control that is so universal it works almost every time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In a few pieces he uses this technique to portray images of the land, linking the qualities of the medium to that of the land, both of them possessing a sense of order while still not being completely under control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On these particular pieces, the land is farmland, which provides another framework of order.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not a wild land, it has had a will impressed upon it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is accentuated by precise technical lines inked over the image.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These lines highlight the imaginary geometrical ideals that we impose on the earth, and provide a good balance between control and lack thereof in the work.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJwVJW6nfcZoHc_qaW8MeZuoO0SvLj7HJwL4TkXeDac2i86cGcIMG9ueHXwMmoaHcRIxGu4HHulhHIqQVPdMLHqJXLn9qEgNZDjpvr0WnAqOJFs-D9aB4_jhvaRcWb9MKmeCEFwL-xzKI/s1600/DSC_0068.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJwVJW6nfcZoHc_qaW8MeZuoO0SvLj7HJwL4TkXeDac2i86cGcIMG9ueHXwMmoaHcRIxGu4HHulhHIqQVPdMLHqJXLn9qEgNZDjpvr0WnAqOJFs-D9aB4_jhvaRcWb9MKmeCEFwL-xzKI/s400/DSC_0068.JPG" width="266" /></a><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There is a strong presence of circles in the work and they enhance both the technical and organic aspects of the images.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The circle is the only geometric form that occurs naturally, and it is also loaded with symbolic meaning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He uses circles that are very precise which complements the hard-edged technical lines in the work, and also uses cups to apply watercolors in a circle that then bleed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are still technically perfect circles, but under the influence of disorder referenced in the rest of the water media.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These circles, as is the nature of the circle, bring everything back around and unify the work, integrating the natural and geometric orders.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>It also ties in a third element I haven’t mentioned yet, which is the element of religion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Several of the pieces clearly depict crosses in the composition, one of which has red circles that were allowed to drip all the way to the bottom, an obvious reference to the blood of the crucifixion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I don’t really care for the straightforward nature of this piece, but I can appreciate the circle as representing the idea of god.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Emerson once wrote an essay about circles and said that god is a circle whose central point is everywhere, all encompassing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The circle represents a connection between ideas of perfection and nature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The circle represents eternity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is an amazing shape, and it makes Meyers’s art work very well.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Kevin Ritchie at Bespoke Salon</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Bespoke Salon is not too far off the beaten path in the Crossroads, but it is inconspicuous.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is part of a row of buildings where the gallery guide says there are several venues showing, but in real life they just appear to be several different businesses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But when I saw a gigantic painting of four women puking multi-colored streams onto a white tablecloth, there was no mistaking that there was something worth looking at, and I had to go in.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhjUTgOEAq1nU95Z7v9UbY3BHJtXmqDnghqJYjrQHsE7xM9tLwfHsoBKzrDrj9TCnW1NChUvD4D-7DdB8hyphenhyphenAqT7r1LGeAgVlcQyXeweBGdsDe1KVq-veo3VYGsEzznutGDCj5aZHNLzik/s1600/DSC_0078.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhjUTgOEAq1nU95Z7v9UbY3BHJtXmqDnghqJYjrQHsE7xM9tLwfHsoBKzrDrj9TCnW1NChUvD4D-7DdB8hyphenhyphenAqT7r1LGeAgVlcQyXeweBGdsDe1KVq-veo3VYGsEzznutGDCj5aZHNLzik/s400/DSC_0078.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju7SOnWQfXEfcNJGYYI3cuz63FNms5Yj3FCYW32aJa_emusa7jzyIrRw9Fgp0h5w6MQ5tE3QG0KxVEPH3Qc4-qDjyk_bZKEsudLroWN7BmpMA6h_fLHYNGKgOFl8_JNkxRQ03D1VOGDvs/s1600/DSC_0083.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju7SOnWQfXEfcNJGYYI3cuz63FNms5Yj3FCYW32aJa_emusa7jzyIrRw9Fgp0h5w6MQ5tE3QG0KxVEPH3Qc4-qDjyk_bZKEsudLroWN7BmpMA6h_fLHYNGKgOFl8_JNkxRQ03D1VOGDvs/s320/DSC_0083.JPG" width="214" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Kevin Ritchie uses an insane hyper-realism in his paintings that is normally reserved for fantasy art.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I honestly can’t imagine how long these paintings took him with so much intense detail on so many large surfaces.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He paints so realistically it goes beyond realism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s like looking into another dimension, which is good because his imagery is equally surreal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>His paintings place people in a stark contrast with the natural world, with just a bit of twisted humor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two children are shown close to grizzly bears, completely unaware of the potential danger in the situation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They could just as easily appear in a family photo album.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A painting of two gorillas shows a litter of cats intermingling with leopards, a funny link that doesn’t often occur to people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The painting that originally caught my attention is called “Beauty Knows No Pain”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is it just a coincidence that this painting was hung in a beauty salon?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some may find the painting too confrontational, but that’s why I like it: it’s shocking.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s hard to look away if this painting is within sight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Plus the women appear to be rather calm and casual in this scene, with one of them looking coyly up at the viewer as a stream of purple liquid oozes from her mouth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is surreal and unworldly, and it makes sense in the series of bizarre images with humans existing in opposition with the natural world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.theprintperspective.com/"><img border="0" height="191" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzHPpX3oiCgv_FSexXQiyBvi3U1lt3LlIcb_VgF3vZIhTulZYJ3pHLsWKFruw_u2fbrweTO79Y-oYN1iZeQbsAdIKz-WHD6PYh2aZmbBTOZMOmI60AK3qifRpUqFiPbBE-9Bv5X79c66c/s400/print+perspective+twitter+ad.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>mkuhlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04592066268729442981noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8368113811145285959.post-83424587255202498592010-10-05T00:59:00.000-07:002010-10-05T00:59:04.700-07:00October 2010... Lindsay Deifik is frontin'... attack of the blob at the Blue Gallery... Christopher Leitch has answered my prayers... Kung Fu masters are the deadliest... is Jesse Small for or against the war in Afghanistan?... Patrick Adams owns a computer!...<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The October First Friday seemed to be shaping up as a disappointment as I scanned through the list of openings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Several venues were showing the same work they had in September, and it looked as if it might be difficult to find shows worth writing about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t even review the show Arts Incubator, which normally has solid work, because they had a group show featuring several people I know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It seemed I would have to venture off the beaten path to find some shows to review, and almost every time I’ve ventured out of the way to check out a new space, it has not been worth the effort.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(I’m looking at you, Mutant Chaos Gallery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had high hopes for such a wacky name, but you didn’t live up to it.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I picked some galleries that were not too far out of the way, and luckily my first pick, the Frontspace Gallery, yielded a good result.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRw3OMi6R-v3ZuVVyvnpGwj_Vcx_RLzMrQaochs6XX-4lfP3Sv4fGzVyas2ElPN9IHc87wQi5ZSeb4AloTPMMB6cbxT-bikJhhyphenhyphen2Ly5o11F5A0cS6zX_Pj8Ow122OrY9V-q6vUhdQQ65s/s1600/DSC_0518.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRw3OMi6R-v3ZuVVyvnpGwj_Vcx_RLzMrQaochs6XX-4lfP3Sv4fGzVyas2ElPN9IHc87wQi5ZSeb4AloTPMMB6cbxT-bikJhhyphenhyphen2Ly5o11F5A0cS6zX_Pj8Ow122OrY9V-q6vUhdQQ65s/s320/DSC_0518.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Lindsay Deifik at the Frontspace Gallery</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Being a printmaker myself, I really enjoy Lindsay Deifik’s show at the Frontspace Gallery because she moves the medium beyond simply making prints.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with creating straight printed artwork at all, but the printmaking techniques really lend themselves to becoming something more than just a two dimensional work, and she is working with some really fresh ideas in this area.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Her show features a series of printed images that resemble the grids of injection-molded plastic components that come with model plane kits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They appear to be printed in either relief or collograph, and are printed on a very thick paper which is cut out, leaving only the printed area of the paper remaining to create a somewhat three-dimensional object with the print.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I detect a reference to mass production and modern consumer society in how all the objects are presented because they are all printed together at once and look ready to punch out for use, but that if you did punch them out they would be quickly disposed of.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There are many different objects in each cluster, and where I start to get a little lost is in trying to figure out why she decided to include the objects she did in the prints.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The lime green print seems to have the most thematically unified selection of objects, consisting of many items related to arts and culture in some way, but the rest of the objects are weapons, toys, house wares, sporting goods, and a random assemblage of knick-knack items.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If there is a connection between all of these things, I’m not able to discern it.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7WP8VJ9IetQHP1JSOka5h0A_vNszGDln5QzV-mB3ZS5mLMaCc0cVeobcVC2X_h728F4N-xujsIry3ROed7kfPxsQfvj2D03tcjZfq-hiYXBwGnBo0e_FsddqSm0yCcQSAzm56VSaXHSo/s1600/DSC_0527.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7WP8VJ9IetQHP1JSOka5h0A_vNszGDln5QzV-mB3ZS5mLMaCc0cVeobcVC2X_h728F4N-xujsIry3ROed7kfPxsQfvj2D03tcjZfq-hiYXBwGnBo0e_FsddqSm0yCcQSAzm56VSaXHSo/s320/DSC_0527.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>What takes her prints to another level is that these printed forms can be folded up into house structures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again, the perceived randomness of the images doesn’t enhance the structures at all, but the modular living quarters they create seem to go along with the sense of mass production I get from seeing the full prints on the wall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And even though the forms are not that extraordinary, just the idea of taking a printed image and being able to fold it into a structural form is compelling in itself.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>She also has a nicely crafted hand-made book on display that incorporates the same type of prints and imagery seen in the rest of the show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two rifles can be seen through openings in the felt cover, and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>cut out printed images are layered through the pages to create interesting multi-layered compositions, but again the mysteriousness of these images leaves me wondering what it all means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Overall it’s a good show and I was glad to see it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think Deifik has some good ideas cooking and that they can eventually result in some great things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The book is excellently made and Lindsay’s precision in creating and cutting out her prints is superb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One thing that would help the work would be to figure out a better presentation method of the full prints than just sticking them to the wall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fixing them to a mat or pressing them between glass would keep the small pieces from sticking out or sagging, and give the print a more solid appearance as an object.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another option could be to print on a more rigid material.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This would help the house structures look a bit more convincing and solid because the fragile nature of the cut paper makes them look a little shaky. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The other thing that would really help this show is an artist statement.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not one to say that all shows should have statements posted, but in this case it could be the key that lets the viewer know where she is coming from and what all this imagery is supposed to make us think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The best way of doing this would probably be in the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some text incorporated into the pages of the book could have provided a deeper look into some of the ideas and meaning behind the images, and been the perfect way to help the viewer make sense of the work without having to post a statement on the wall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrKQ7f1IIUngVYb5yZEZGTk6n81KIkQd794ERx3T7hruyCec3FmsU_ht29BlAmFxgXaR7GVmxFQ5O59IGDJM-15U-l4laniQ9W4SKeZz9ksbS8cmbuJNj1HywOsQHOhbGf8DZhT97o-4c/s1600/DSC_0534.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrKQ7f1IIUngVYb5yZEZGTk6n81KIkQd794ERx3T7hruyCec3FmsU_ht29BlAmFxgXaR7GVmxFQ5O59IGDJM-15U-l4laniQ9W4SKeZz9ksbS8cmbuJNj1HywOsQHOhbGf8DZhT97o-4c/s320/DSC_0534.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Kelly Porter at the Blue Gallery</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>There are three terms that are essential in describing Kelly Porter’s show at the Blue Gallery: chunky, clustered, and hodge-podge.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The term chunky is in reference to how her work feels visually because of her mark-making.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Occasionally using flat planes of color, most of her work is dominated by very large, bold marks that appear exactly as they were applied in the final piece.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is a very raw effect, and with so many large brushstrokes and marks applied with the same unvarying pressure, the work feels very bulky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, in some cases it works very well, but in many pieces Porter runs dangerously close to bogging down the composition with marks that are too visually repetitive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The lack of variety in marks eliminates many of the smaller focal points that finer brushwork can create throughout the piece, resulting in limited eye-movement, and ultimately making the work uninteresting to look at.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>However, most of her pieces manage to avoid completely falling victim to this problem through the use of what I call “clustering.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While it is more typical to create visual interest and eye movement through varied line quality and color use, Porter creates a visual flow by swirling and layering dense marks in certain areas and leaving other areas less worked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Essentially, it mimics what using a smaller brush would do, but through different means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some finer line work or color contrast would still help in most cases, but her method of clustering marks is enough to create some eye movement and a bit of depth within the dominantly bulky marks she uses.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>And I feel the term hodge-podge accurately describes everything about Porter’s style and the show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All the pieces in the show are an eclectic mix of results achieved through a similar style of frenetically mashing paint and other materials onto the canvas or paper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some compositions come out complex, others come out static.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some pieces are pure paintings, and some are mixed media.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The style is even similar to a number of artists all jumbled together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Off the top of my head I can see similarities to painters such as Klimt, Matisse, Dufy, Dubuffet, Hofmann, and de Kooning, all jumbled together in varying mixtures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvbgcAJFC0OAmTRKVB70eDUrqxiVph_5QvCBa___-2xrBzt-tpl8UFOSD9_Yh5TqL67HSKKlosXKc7eueB4lKdxpCg69QuR3AfTF7pcsVGZAaWsAZ3aOGKjtVXxgZhYd9hV1vUUKSbIXU/s1600/DSC_0543.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvbgcAJFC0OAmTRKVB70eDUrqxiVph_5QvCBa___-2xrBzt-tpl8UFOSD9_Yh5TqL67HSKKlosXKc7eueB4lKdxpCg69QuR3AfTF7pcsVGZAaWsAZ3aOGKjtVXxgZhYd9hV1vUUKSbIXU/s320/DSC_0543.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The most interesting results tend to be in the mixed media pieces because Porter’s style of working lets the marks stand out as they are, and in a piece with multiple materials this creates another aspect of variation and depth that gives the viewer more to digest. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On the whole I find Porter’s style of working very hit or miss, and the pieces that hit are the ones that have more variation in the marks, more complex compositions, and a more diverse use of color.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without these elements you end up with some colored blobs and no dynamic focal points to engage you in the work.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP0erNVZLoEj3ib4y23FmGWpG040-zlMNzFtwqE73ZubsZnXzIceFVdrsONrfPTJA4RciQyPvp3aXFtPiiaZSGcCXNUfJ8sHciYnasm000NlsInNl_PMDEtwRRgUs5nMn5Qn5-TvTNSAg/s1600/DSC_0556.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP0erNVZLoEj3ib4y23FmGWpG040-zlMNzFtwqE73ZubsZnXzIceFVdrsONrfPTJA4RciQyPvp3aXFtPiiaZSGcCXNUfJ8sHciYnasm000NlsInNl_PMDEtwRRgUs5nMn5Qn5-TvTNSAg/s320/DSC_0556.JPG" width="214" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">BEST IN SHOW- Christopher Leitch at the Leedy-Voulkos</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’m selecting Christopher Leitch’s show at the Leedy-Voulkos as the best of the October First Friday not because of technical skill, but because his show truly made me feel something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s rare that a show makes me surprised by how strongly I react to it, and Leitch was able to evoke this from me simply by scribbling on the walls in crayon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But my liking of the show may have been amplified by the fact that the first two pieces of it I saw were terrible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>On entering the space, there are two small framed watercolor and crayon pieces about 8” by 10”, and they literally look like a grade-schooler did them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even if that is what Leitch was attempting to achieve, it has no redeeming qualities, and I was horrified to be seeing this in a space with the reputation that the Leedy-Voulkos has.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But luckily there were only four of these abominations in the show and I completely forgot about them when I saw the rest of the installation.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Leitch’s show is titled “Blessings: Answers to Prayers,” and I must say he made some brilliant choices in how to portray images related to this idea.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The downfall of the framed pieces is that they are too solid, too concrete, and too small to represent an idea such as a blessing or a prayer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It works infinitely better in the pieces he scribbles some swirling lines on the wall like a gesture of smoke rising into the sky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Drawing directly on the wall makes the lines feel much more fleeting and impermanent, as if the shape of an actual blessing was burned in your retina just long enough to know what it looked like, and you recorded it by tracing its outline on the wall before it disappeared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What’s funny is that the forms he scribbled on the wall look almost exactly like something from my childhood.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every week in church we sang a song that contained the line “from whom all blessings flow,” and every week while singing that line I got a mental image of something that looked almost exactly like what Leitch drew on the wall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is an idea of non-verbal communication with nobody, and he nailed it perfectly.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjls35WhD85_pyk4Gu0CDOGQGU3eOW354ofgbZozhZLY-D3dBqaq-dvbhSxy9FgAM3AusG7ahNmNB0j-Xt9rGgUhR8UEuPVnD9efMk9pvsTUXfZpihptF234ZBVMuLq_oSgm97AB1D196M/s1600/DSC_0562.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjls35WhD85_pyk4Gu0CDOGQGU3eOW354ofgbZozhZLY-D3dBqaq-dvbhSxy9FgAM3AusG7ahNmNB0j-Xt9rGgUhR8UEuPVnD9efMk9pvsTUXfZpihptF234ZBVMuLq_oSgm97AB1D196M/s320/DSC_0562.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The other part of the show was also excellently done in terms of material choice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Along the wall pieces of white silky-looking fabric are suspended from the wall with different markings on them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a way they resemble Tibetan prayer flags in a way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of the markings are similar to the crayon scribbling on the walls, and others were more similar to rudimentary Asian characters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The markings are not so compelling in themselves, but the way in which they are presented makes them seem weightless and impermanent enough that I feel as if I can form a meaning to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s as if they are floating in my own consciousness, and I’m not supposed to know exactly what they mean because they are produced by a force that is beyond my comprehension.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have seen a lot of art that deals with ideas rooted in spirituality, but this show is perhaps the most effective one I have ever seen in terms of capturing the sensation of spiritual experiences.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I should also say that Leitch’s show is not the type of work I typically enjoy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is more common for artists to lean on devices such as abstraction and simplicity as an easy way out, claiming that it represents their idea when really they just don’t want to work very hard.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in this case these devices were used very effectively, and because of this rare occurrence I’m going to grant Christopher Leitch with the best in show title for October, 2010.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His website can be viewed <a href="http://www.christopherleitchstudio.com/">here</a>.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUGv_Rngfk37WA6fRdbYgekU4FDAYprl-m2dt8AIpWqbJqujYI0tg3riPcQgQ-naaF0R6lgoAS69FJqh5RzmUhUjtsgffRg-y22fGcH6TieTH91oj-hLnmv2rOxBAaG71d3xOTXGrgats/s1600/DSC_0574.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUGv_Rngfk37WA6fRdbYgekU4FDAYprl-m2dt8AIpWqbJqujYI0tg3riPcQgQ-naaF0R6lgoAS69FJqh5RzmUhUjtsgffRg-y22fGcH6TieTH91oj-hLnmv2rOxBAaG71d3xOTXGrgats/s320/DSC_0574.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Hung Liu at the Byron C. Cohen Gallery</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I don’t have much to say about Hung Liu’s show at the Byron C. Cohen Gallery, because there’s absolutely nothing to dispute about it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is a modern master and has been making amazing paintings about twice as long as I’ve been alive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You just can’t mess with that.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I happen to know a bit about Asian art, which is helpful in appreciating her work because she creates an interesting blend of modern art and traditional Asian painting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the lower level of the gallery are several paintings that juxtapose the plight of avian bird flu and SARS in modern China alongside traditional style paintings of birds and nature scenes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>From my perspective I see these paintings as a statement that modern society is stepping too far outside its natural bounds, and paying for this transgression in human suffering and misery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>These paintings are done in a very different style than the rest of the show.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The figurative portions are created with layers of thick brushstrokes that clearly show the features of each stroke while still creating a very realistic image, similar to how Rembrandt worked his paintings.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The rest of the paintings in the show are considerably larger, and have a more polished look to them with many thin layers of oils creating a menagerie of traditional Asian imagery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not well-versed enough in Asian art to fully explain the full meaning behind the landscapes, birds, and flowers that she includes in her paintings, but even without understanding anything about the meaning behind them, her paintings are a visual feast and should not be missed if you’re in the downtown Kansas City area.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Jesse Small at the Belger Arts Center</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I’ll admit that I’m somewhat biased against installation work, but it is because of artists like Jesse Small that I have a bias against it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>More often than not, it seems that installation artists bank on the fact that their work takes up so much physical space that it will compensate for the fact that it doesn’t make a lot of sense, or at the very least a few saps will assume that because it’s an “untraditional” form of artwork that it must be good simply based off that fact.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvij60iIX5_xxFFWp6GP7HKNovk6v-pMq9qN08CUmAJlf-IC2_4C6Oq1cFvwMJI6ObCxFKXcVLQ1gnJOE8mH-ReS1NgnXvd_B4AEYyrJzDowjBgqAh8UpLgKc9YVZScvnPufpeMq33k58/s1600/DSC_0584.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvij60iIX5_xxFFWp6GP7HKNovk6v-pMq9qN08CUmAJlf-IC2_4C6Oq1cFvwMJI6ObCxFKXcVLQ1gnJOE8mH-ReS1NgnXvd_B4AEYyrJzDowjBgqAh8UpLgKc9YVZScvnPufpeMq33k58/s320/DSC_0584.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Small’s installation, entitled “UNDADOG” just doesn’t make any sense as to what it’s trying to tell you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is an unmistakable reference to war with a bunker area fenced in by soldiers’ field graves and exploding metal jumbles of AK-47’s arranged in portions of the installation, but there is no message or stance to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s like having a stranger on the street walk up to you shout “WAR! <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>WAR man!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>War is real!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>WAR!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yeah, I get that it’s about war, but what is your view on it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>War is a common theme in art, and to use it effectively requires injecting an opinion on the subject, and Small’s installation doesn’t do this.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The craft involved in making the installation is excellent, with a fine attention to detail present in each object.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The aforementioned bunker is surrounded by cast metal guns with helmets perched on top of them, and different graffiti adorns each helmet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Metal barbed wire/plant forms are woven through parts of the fence created by the guns, and inside the enclosed space are many war-related artifacts, as well as a few small burning candles, a nice touch. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is ample evidence that the work is very well thought out as far as achieving a complete visual effect, and I suspect that it might be the attention to detail that distracted from the larger mission of purveying a message to the viewer. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It reminds me of the musician John Zorn who said he lost his big-picture perspective in the minute details with his album Locus Solus. He made the noise-jazz album thinking that it was going to hit the charts, but after the album was released he realized how skewed his focus had become in the process and said “what charts did I think this album was this album going to hit?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>On Mars?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is some weird shit!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM_Uj892fgr1_y4QlqiC1XXjNziKDq3KbY0pXAUqoYU5d789nH7QvpYcM_MfEpZ9hZo-KQ3pBKCMToIBubNUpuK1iBh56tEDbA-pySkGrwWXSCEciggEJN5-4UA2XKh5QyQfhR7GV_l6c/s1600/DSC_0585.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM_Uj892fgr1_y4QlqiC1XXjNziKDq3KbY0pXAUqoYU5d789nH7QvpYcM_MfEpZ9hZo-KQ3pBKCMToIBubNUpuK1iBh56tEDbA-pySkGrwWXSCEciggEJN5-4UA2XKh5QyQfhR7GV_l6c/s320/DSC_0585.JPG" width="214" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Where I really get lost in the installation is the other half where a large plastic panel resembling either a spider web or an explosion hangs suspended from the ceiling, and in front of this is a wood platform that looks like a bowling lane with many small, metal lumps, a few unrecognizable forms of twisted metal, what appears to be an “altar” with an illuminated plastic toy on top, and a jumble of metal with the aforementioned AK-47’s poking out of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Replicas of this metal jumble are also suspended from the ceiling along with several colored lights, some of which are shaped like toy robots from the 80’s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Am I really supposed to make any sense of this?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Honestly, the whole thing would be better if it was just the bunker portion of the installation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This part of the work feels unified in the imagery and with the small candles lit inside exudes a sense of desperation which would fit well with the darkened room the show is placed in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It would feel complete if this small hovel made out of fallen comrades was stranded alone in this darkened room with the candles becoming the main point of interest, but this jumbled mess he created next to it completely dominates the viewer’s focus and completely confuses the meaning of the imagery in the other half of the work.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Patrick Adams at Plenum Space</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The sign in front of the Plenum Space Gallery billed the work as “photographs,” but if I had to guess all of Patrick Adams’ pieces were digital and also run through photoshop.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not that it’s a big deal using photoshop, but I think it’s important that digital photos be billed as such, because anyone who’s ever developed real photographs knows that there is a definite art to producing a silver gelatin print.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That aspect alone can be enough to appreciate a photograph as a true art object, and it’s difficult to grant a digital photograph the same respect when all you have to do is press a button, select a computer file, and click print to make it.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoTmIjNjuZR0I53s2-s8mgugqcNMq_M3yzfh1pijSRco0rdU5sXtVMUGmbJuALXElwErognK1PcArEdHwkTlhCIiHkrX5fdMbu_YjKtpZIrTiD2XH7u5wudac7N4J-hI6s85vU6vISXQM/s1600/DSC_0608.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoTmIjNjuZR0I53s2-s8mgugqcNMq_M3yzfh1pijSRco0rdU5sXtVMUGmbJuALXElwErognK1PcArEdHwkTlhCIiHkrX5fdMbu_YjKtpZIrTiD2XH7u5wudac7N4J-hI6s85vU6vISXQM/s320/DSC_0608.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I assume that Adam’s used photoshop because he either did that or he is a master at printing color photography, and don’t believe that anyone would take the time to print multiple color exposures the old-fashioned way anymore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the images are irrelevant to the typical viewer: a toy giraffe standing in a plant pot, text partially obscured by plants in the foreground, Chinese characters layered over a picture of some trees, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ghostly merging of layers into one another has been so easily obtained for over a decade that most people are not going to be interested in looking at most of Adams’s show.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>But there are two prints in the show that really catch my attention and show some possible promise in his work. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Whatever manipulation that was used in these prints was done very well.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The first is titled “Building Cities from Shadows.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has an interesting composition, looks unified and compelling, plus I’m a sucker for work containing architectural elements.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The other one that caught my eye is “reBirth” which shows a tree juxtaposed against an old wall with the paint peeling off of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">These two stand out as different from the rest of his work because there seems to be some real thought put into how they were done.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many of the others feel like he was doing what is normally expected, (I’ve got an open country field scene here, so I’ll shop in a photo I took of some birds flying around…), but in these two he goes beyond the obvious and takes a more thoughtful approach to the images, and ends up with much better results.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGGr9SZzqz7X3qnZwC4cNjUKpaJZa6_0I8fT2Nw8luL_hHCDkNAJm1Vc2_OvLV2ygApTFfHeZGXdVOHFuaTjHudQN1nE4f6XfclpeAQwIqmSkXhhrP08tYGsAWz6LZBm02vCkY5xWcpnY/s1600/DSC_0610.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" px="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGGr9SZzqz7X3qnZwC4cNjUKpaJZa6_0I8fT2Nw8luL_hHCDkNAJm1Vc2_OvLV2ygApTFfHeZGXdVOHFuaTjHudQN1nE4f6XfclpeAQwIqmSkXhhrP08tYGsAWz6LZBm02vCkY5xWcpnY/s320/DSC_0610.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>mkuhlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04592066268729442981noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8368113811145285959.post-88984881312349686912010-09-05T22:54:00.000-07:002010-09-16T14:13:16.463-07:00September, 2010...Jonah Criswell's tap water tastes funny...The Blue Gallery turns 10...No leftover scraps at the Beggar's Table...It's always a mixed bag at the Leedy-Voulkos, but mixed nuts?...Blown away at studio b<strong>Welcome to the first edition of First Fridays in Kansas City Review!</strong><br />
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Being my first attempt to do a multi-show review, I didn’t have much of a plan as to how to go about doing it. My goal was to look at and review as much work as possible, which after writing this entry I realize is not feasible. In the future I will develop criteria that will limit the number of shows being reviewed. Rule #1 is going to be: no more reviewing group shows. But for now you’re going to have to deal with this marathon of a blog post. If you get bored, just skip to the end. It’s worth it.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Jonah Criswell at the Cocoon Gallery</span></strong><br />
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The Cocoon Gallery at Arts Incubator near 18th and Baltimore in the Crossroads is a First Fridays stronghold that consistently attracts good shows. This month’s show of paintings by Jonah Criswell titled “Reside” is not a departure from this norm. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqJ4QoMot2xL8jHDhwVebta06wg1IJu_KtAk6r3VvPGPSt5xsH8QIkNgTtE13U61glUl5d9_iZHV3bcqYHlD_3ltSxn5DLYMq49V9eUWEoa1COI-mNlR8U04_hRMlhjARtICrBtGuJVDg/s1600/DSC_0367.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqJ4QoMot2xL8jHDhwVebta06wg1IJu_KtAk6r3VvPGPSt5xsH8QIkNgTtE13U61glUl5d9_iZHV3bcqYHlD_3ltSxn5DLYMq49V9eUWEoa1COI-mNlR8U04_hRMlhjARtICrBtGuJVDg/s400/DSC_0367.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> The show is divided into two halves: four monumental scaled paintings of an apartment interior, and three mid-sized graphite drawings of the same subject. The paintings grab your attention immediately, being roughly 6’x6’, but it’s the fine attention to detail, excellent use of color, and subtle warping of spatial relations that keeps you looking at them.<br />
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Three of the four paintings in a series titled “We Are Home” portray a living area, and the treatment of the wood floors is perhaps the most interesting part of the work. By using warm and cool mixtures to capture different tones of light reflections and texture, the viewer is given a heightened and interpreted sense of an otherwise everyday subject. Equal attention is paid to all surfaces in the work, but the floor offers the most play in light, and rightfully dominates the compositions. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjFb2spaE2Xz2sVgwUQjQJLyJk0x2uAW04m5V1p73cIrcdG7y5OnnQEJWUIBG1s84r0ug8ZqY08gCDlOH9z-QdOnsXMhFSpqTHUUoh_mev-s_MI-biauv5kp9eswI_AGew6YOC5Nh_5bU/s1600/DSC_0365.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjFb2spaE2Xz2sVgwUQjQJLyJk0x2uAW04m5V1p73cIrcdG7y5OnnQEJWUIBG1s84r0ug8ZqY08gCDlOH9z-QdOnsXMhFSpqTHUUoh_mev-s_MI-biauv5kp9eswI_AGew6YOC5Nh_5bU/s320/DSC_0365.jpg" /></a></div><br />
The warping of the space is the magic ingredient that activates the paintings with a sense of life. The floor is shown from an overhead angle that doesn’t always match the walls, which have a tendency to twist as they go up, and the floorboards do not follow realistic parallel patterns. The furniture also shifts in perspective through the space. If the perspective were rendered completely realistically, the paintings would probably be rather boring. Instead, the small tweaks in angles cause your brain to start scrambling all over the painting trying to figure it out, and it’s effective because the changes are not major enough to make it unbelievable. Rather, it is a closer representation of how our brains recall a space than how it perceives it through our eyes, and creates a unique, exciting space to look at. <br />
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The fourth painting, showing a view over a shower curtain rail in a bathroom, is not as interesting. The composition is very symmetrical and dominantly a drab green. The darkness of the space does not offer itself to the same amount of detail as the other paintings, and the room dimensions looking unrealistically constrained around a window in the center. The only thing for the viewer to grasp onto is the soft glow of light reaching the ceiling from the window, which is not remarkable enough to carry the piece by itself.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih4yi8SvdpEPH0ZtXZXkhvB7RY7tGX298cgcs9zoxvVZr_aB8P35YH-iaWquUxnpGEpxYJaxcKwoFx-p4N0QPBMg8BTP1IBShpR1a7_9bcKqv69_kSWrpFMxZ0OU-eu5qWB_szooD-IfU/s1600/DSC_0372.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih4yi8SvdpEPH0ZtXZXkhvB7RY7tGX298cgcs9zoxvVZr_aB8P35YH-iaWquUxnpGEpxYJaxcKwoFx-p4N0QPBMg8BTP1IBShpR1a7_9bcKqv69_kSWrpFMxZ0OU-eu5qWB_szooD-IfU/s320/DSC_0372.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Perhaps to prove that the warped perspectives in the paintings are purposeful, Criswell’s graphite drawings are rendered as perfectly realistic, at least in terms of perspective. These interior spaces are very meticulously drawn interiors with light vertical stripes and patchworks of darker areas throughout the drawing. I probably wouldn’t have guessed that they were drawings of low-res apartment ads if it wasn’t for the obvious pixilation happening in “Beautiful 1 Bedroom Loft Great Kitchen”. The pixilation in this drawing is overbearing, distracting from the skill it took to manually draw the image, and it ends up coming off gimmicky. Still, the other two drawings didn’t fall victim to this and have enough happening in the mixture of abstraction into the image to make it fun to look at.<br />
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Overall a good show, the concept is also enjoyable. Criswell’s work is also effective in getting the viewer to consider what makes a home, and what makes a space unique to us, but you don’t have to get into that realm of thinking to enjoy the work. It is enough of an idea to carry the work conceptually without being so overly-important that it distracts from the interesting spaces he creates.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">The Blue Gallery</span></strong><br />
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“Spectacle” at the Blue Gallery features a handful of their 43 represented artists in a 10th anniversary exhibition. Apparently the Blue Gallery is bipolar, predominantly embracing realistic figure work, but also hosting a fair number of abstract artists. It’s not a bad thing, just unexpected.<br />
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<em>Jhina Alvaredo</em><br />
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Jhina Alvaredo uses gorgeous technique to create her series “Forgotten Memories”. A majority of the images is an empty off-white space, and she paints her figures in an antique gray that allows them to visually merge with the white, making it atmospheric. The whole painting is then covered in encaustic wax, which gives the perfect finish to her antique photo subjects. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwN5nfWLs_IeEfRmYEigu1NH3bofTpEewoELEiiJvErCyHDRUzJHBBFyzlcWzW7O49da5taoj9tkgVSPkNsXrVNWqMLs4fYAijy_IeiQG5vA2WJZqXlE18kGnC5c8aG6Aer1HFkC21-j4/s1600/DSC_0377.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwN5nfWLs_IeEfRmYEigu1NH3bofTpEewoELEiiJvErCyHDRUzJHBBFyzlcWzW7O49da5taoj9tkgVSPkNsXrVNWqMLs4fYAijy_IeiQG5vA2WJZqXlE18kGnC5c8aG6Aer1HFkC21-j4/s320/DSC_0377.jpg" width="212" /></a></div> Where I’m not convinced by her work is the decision to place black bands over the eyes of all the figures. Alvaredo’s statement says “I block out the eyes so that the viewer can take part of each memory as if it were their own.” Blocking the eyes is a very bold move. It is the very first thing the viewer notices, and it does not help the viewer take part in the memory. In “Fire Island” it makes the two men appear to be involved in a possibly scandalous tryst they don’t want their family to find out about. “Upward Gaze” could be found in an album insert for Rage Against the Machine, appearing to make a statement about blindness and oppression in a seemingly wholesome American. The images are interesting and nice to look at, but the intended message is not getting through with this device.<br />
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<em>Nicole Cawlfield</em><br />
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</tbody></table><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"> Another artist working in the antique motif, Cawlfield pulls it off rather flawlessly. Her work is a great object by placing photo transfers onto old, beaten tin ceiling tiles for a frame. It fits the imagery perfectly, and recalls the tin daguerreotypes of the 1800’s. There was no statement available for her work, but I was curious to know if the photos were found or shot recently, because they actually look like genuine photos of freak shows in the 20’s. They are very fun and appealing pieces that make us think about what it means to think of someone as a freak or an oddity, and how that perception either has or hasn’t changed in our modern times.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><em>Bernal Koehrsen</em> <br />
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Koehrsen’s paintings are a mix of fantasy art, pop art, geometric abstraction, and freeform abstraction. My first impression is that his work is an example of art as process, and sure enough his statement says that the series represent his long journey of surrendering himself to God so that he might take the identity of God. I won’t try to type the name of the deity for fear of getting it wrong, but it appears to be a part of Hindu or another Indian religion. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbKS6yqxM-MR1dMsFu9xUFUvWT_NLJe7ucJ06wFeahjI7w8SNtMXeY12JHWnc93Fl_C-sYJCHRO1vuq7TM78lvULvByFq-CgptNzH9zWWRhwEuPpj4cj9V8406unmqFr4H4D02mFDve5g/s1600/DSC_0396.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbKS6yqxM-MR1dMsFu9xUFUvWT_NLJe7ucJ06wFeahjI7w8SNtMXeY12JHWnc93Fl_C-sYJCHRO1vuq7TM78lvULvByFq-CgptNzH9zWWRhwEuPpj4cj9V8406unmqFr4H4D02mFDve5g/s320/DSC_0396.jpg" /></a></div> Some things that work in these paintings are the intense layering and organic patterning of shapes. He has done enough work on the canvas that you can get really close and discover many surprises in the mixture of materials. There are also several different methods of applying paint which contributes to the depth of the work. Without that it would probably appear flat and stagnant, but the depth provides movement and energy in the forms. <br />
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However, this effect doesn’t always work well. When the looser, expressive marks are more subdued and contribute to the background and overall atmosphere, it gives a logical order to the piece and works well. When the frontal forms are hand-painted in contrast to perfect geometric forms in the background, it looks a awkward, as if the hand-painted forms were an afterthought and he didn’t want to take the time to give them the same treatment. I’m also not sold on the excessive use of bright neon paint, but that’s really a personal hang-up, so take that with a grain of salt.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh279-al7POnt-P1Jf-IcTVvLu9bVCYbfGUR53QNCCiZICelux3N5ZSIVWeonPM97-sfacs839Qh7BvUZ0jDwJjXWrINbXTDY_v3MqUZQJ5syTaW7ux0tzKqP7rED8JxbWiUWhX7ZUtIZc/s1600/DSC_0380.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh279-al7POnt-P1Jf-IcTVvLu9bVCYbfGUR53QNCCiZICelux3N5ZSIVWeonPM97-sfacs839Qh7BvUZ0jDwJjXWrINbXTDY_v3MqUZQJ5syTaW7ux0tzKqP7rED8JxbWiUWhX7ZUtIZc/s320/DSC_0380.jpg" /></a></div><em>Dale Jarrett</em><br />
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The paintings Jarrett had on display are shameless rip-offs of Franz Kline, and not even worth looking at. Abstract expressionism has been done to death, and lifting an idea from another artist is just a bad idea in general.<br />
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<em>Joe Gregory</em><br />
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Gregory’s paintings are hard for me to form an opinion about because they are so… weird. He paints very confrontational images of figures, and paints them billboard size just to make sure they don’t escape your attention. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibs-Dy8LFzaHjKead42m0BWLwegbNeF1zuLEDKExUsgrPv0IHbPav5KWSTzej1m7TU7kKxkRdJ18tzZM-RdRHMIHDxa2_HR5-kqjoWEOVukYVLxYN9wOGEQcaw99dpILyjlnoHLQZz6ZU/s1600/DSC_0405.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibs-Dy8LFzaHjKead42m0BWLwegbNeF1zuLEDKExUsgrPv0IHbPav5KWSTzej1m7TU7kKxkRdJ18tzZM-RdRHMIHDxa2_HR5-kqjoWEOVukYVLxYN9wOGEQcaw99dpILyjlnoHLQZz6ZU/s200/DSC_0405.jpg" width="200" /></a></div> As far as I can tell, his work is designed to make you uncomfortable. The largest painting, “Cracked”, shows two obese nude women in luchador masks standing pressed together, and they are still too large to fit onto the roughly 15’x6’ canvas. They both have surgery scars on their chest which adds to the discomfort of looking at the image. Despite being very nicely painted, the imagery makes you want to look away. His statement says that his figures are a reaction to the unrealistic portrayal of bodies in the media, so in this painting we can conclude that we are in fact being shown “normal” bodies and get the point, but then the other two works really throw me for a loop. <br />
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The first shows a newborn craning its pained-looking wrinkled face towards the viewer, and the other shows a nude masked man hunkered down on the floor, with a mirror showing a reflection of a vagina instead of the penis seen on the figure. I wouldn’t say the work is bad in any capacity, I kind of like it, but I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to think. It’s similar to the reaction I get sometimes from reading William S. Burroughs, where you are confronted with something so strangely outlandish, and sometimes grotesque, that it warps your mind. And if you continue to be exposed to similar material eventually your mind warps to the point that it makes sense, and you can enjoy it as easily as you do anything else.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Jennifer Rivers at The Beggar’s Table</span></strong> <br />
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Over the past few months I’ve come to find The Beggar’s Table an unexpectedly good gallery. I’ve typically seen emerging artists of varying levels there, and always been impressed by work that was above my expectations. This show came off a little underwhelming, perhaps because I’ve developed some expectations about the gallery.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb0V4jTxReWNldXsT-YsglfLoT2rII-npeEPe9VFaoCPzftL8UIOcWBRf9LU0ZL0hlz882Bu_sVWmEWBsraelmXLc0lGWv2VTkB7GhZyvtQddmrY9EwBX_IjUnSH2GC_RdrI3O4LuFbiQ/s1600/DSC_0425.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb0V4jTxReWNldXsT-YsglfLoT2rII-npeEPe9VFaoCPzftL8UIOcWBRf9LU0ZL0hlz882Bu_sVWmEWBsraelmXLc0lGWv2VTkB7GhZyvtQddmrY9EwBX_IjUnSH2GC_RdrI3O4LuFbiQ/s200/DSC_0425.jpg" width="133" /></a></div><br />
All of Rivers’ acrylic paintings are abstract in the strictest sense. There is almost no intent of creating structure in any of the paintings, and it’s difficult to find a plane of color swaths engaging – especially when canvas after canvas is painted using the same structure-less formula. A handful of the pieces stood out as better, and even enjoyable, by beginning to suggest some abstract forms. Once the brain has a shape to play with, it can imagine a lot of things. It can see the sun setting over a rock ridge in the west as clouds roll in, or a hill side overlooking a frozen pond with snow drifts on the bank. The pieces that allowed this ability to imagine show some promise. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-7bW0Yp2Ml88-3VH0mIbKyMrDUGStSt7fHedPYE3TlFTYc3cO6xcoqtOlNbk6rY8V5huHuQk_MfMLa04XO6ixLCGe06Koatrh8dOMxb9814tvTrCLXc6hVm9SMVUUN4S3Cj1vy36qXLI/s1600/DSC_0422.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-7bW0Yp2Ml88-3VH0mIbKyMrDUGStSt7fHedPYE3TlFTYc3cO6xcoqtOlNbk6rY8V5huHuQk_MfMLa04XO6ixLCGe06Koatrh8dOMxb9814tvTrCLXc6hVm9SMVUUN4S3Cj1vy36qXLI/s320/DSC_0422.jpg" /></a></div> A lot of the paintings use very simple color schemes too, which works well in the paintings that have some form and causes the formless ones to become even flatter and less interesting. The one thing that really would help all the pieces is the artist’s hand. All of the paint looks to be applied with larger brushes, which doesn’t allow us to see the artist’s actual influence in the pieces. Rivers doesn’t have to abandon the style she’s working in now completely, but she needs to find a way to make it her own, because the look of the work is so anonymous that it would be hard to remember or distinguish it from someone else doing something similar. <br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">The Leedy-Voulkos Art Center</span></strong><br />
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<em>Kristin Goering</em><br />
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There is no shortage of landscape painting in the Midwest, but Goering found a way to capture the open fields and skies in a fresh way. Her paintings are representational, but not overly rendered so the paint has a chance to remain expressive. Her color choices complement the expressive nature of the brush strokes by being heightened intensity, but not so intense as to look absurd. She is also able to paint trees without them looking overly rigid, plastic, formless, unfinished, or any of the other pitfalls that can often happen when painting them. Close-up, her trees reveal a lattice of many different colors that help in creating form and texture, and far-away trees are simply rendered with a few bold strokes. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfYUwnoqu8bMyvh9ZoUeKkmgI_7y8F7VinaXM2VI_rE5yLo4EJDmNSkg-2ZHOzloQs3-B0Je7-DWJimxWNi2Wqe2IpawQcgrpHWv54gJ8M8vBqt4NMtvWb7bRmWnybD24F2on8SbWPyG8/s1600/DSC_0445.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfYUwnoqu8bMyvh9ZoUeKkmgI_7y8F7VinaXM2VI_rE5yLo4EJDmNSkg-2ZHOzloQs3-B0Je7-DWJimxWNi2Wqe2IpawQcgrpHWv54gJ8M8vBqt4NMtvWb7bRmWnybD24F2on8SbWPyG8/s320/DSC_0445.jpg" /></a></div><br />
I wouldn’t say that her paintings are impressionistic, but the large brush strokes and rendering are very similar to some post-impressionistic works. She is able to create the illusion of finer detail in the wet paint mixing on the canvas and on the brush. In “Close to Cottonwood Falls” the trees are composed of paint daubs with distinct flecks of whites, reds, and yellows mixed into each stroke, which quickly differentiates the foliage and creates dancing traces of color through the green. It’s hard to tell on paintings like this because there could be many layers of paint underneath, but the finished product looks like it was done very quickly while perfectly describing the land. The perceived spontaneity makes it that much more appealing.<br />
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Goering has a great sense of when to let large brushstrokes stand and when to work over them with smaller brushes, but the component that really pulls it together is her attention to repetition in the landscape. There is an element of order in all the work, whether it is the spacing of the trees in a line along a creek or the furrows of a field, there is an ordered element tying the composition together that makes the work very strong. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvMSN6gAoENsis-h9WIgbbnZfH9avYNOgrKgBbRdQ4JGiJeZ2lrbYRq2yvh-we7HgzztpLPdVNzO_FFU5ZoSiFSxyUjufziT3pLu07Tp9-JcRvoUh71XRz8KKAphlIL-LxklbRgZmrTIU/s1600/DSC_0459.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvMSN6gAoENsis-h9WIgbbnZfH9avYNOgrKgBbRdQ4JGiJeZ2lrbYRq2yvh-we7HgzztpLPdVNzO_FFU5ZoSiFSxyUjufziT3pLu07Tp9-JcRvoUh71XRz8KKAphlIL-LxklbRgZmrTIU/s320/DSC_0459.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
Goering also includes some paintings of flowers in the show, which is strange because they are not nearly as impressive. They lack the same energy seen in the landscapes, the compositions are in tight on a single blossom or two, and they feel stagnant. The background and negative spaces are full of bland “grass” strokes (despite having a few good paintings of grass in the show), and the subject isn’t interesting enough to leave the viewer thinking anything more than “that is a painting of a flower.” There are a couple examples of successfully integrating flowers into a larger landscape such as “Black Eyes Susans” and “Sunflower Fields Forever”, but the paintings that focus on flowers keep it from being a flawless show. <br />
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One last thing I would like to comment on is that Goering’s work is priced at a very attainable level. There are a number of pieces I would like to own within my price range, but they are all sold!<br />
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<em>Jenny Meyer-McCall</em><br />
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A second show was in the front space of the gallery. It couldn’t compete with Goering’s work, but it wasn’t without its charm. If I had to guess, I would say that Meyer-McCall did not go to school for art. School tends to push artists into specific ways of working as far as mark making goes, and the strength of her work is that she doesn’t use the same method of painting twice in any of the pieces. It is interesting to see how she decides to approach each piece and make it unique. There is also a lot of collaged material in her paintings which makes it much more compelling than a straight abstract painting. Her pieces are on the small side, but her best one is made of about seven panels hung together on the wall. I would like to see some of this work made in a larger scale, her experimental methods could produce something really exciting. <br />
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<em>S. Shaffer</em><br />
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When I was a younger artist I would sometimes get ideas like “what if I put on a show where I paint three-dimensional pictures of blank canvases on the wall? It’ll be a statement about what art is. It’s not about taking it home and owning it, it’s about blowing your mind and making you think!” But then I’d quickly decide it would be way too much work and I could better spend my time actually making art. <br />
<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHZy5_UY15TrK8d3dR3Mm63klNTzK_JKRCVA7dqjYv58vriaD7Z8Qwjm0-avZeN4DkdQZpIOOO6QvGWHSffBoDlOe_tZIo62BRBDXuQr4PGXTQveZagVYsHFZjO7ARt101p7zGlE9pxoo/s1600/DSC_0487.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHZy5_UY15TrK8d3dR3Mm63klNTzK_JKRCVA7dqjYv58vriaD7Z8Qwjm0-avZeN4DkdQZpIOOO6QvGWHSffBoDlOe_tZIo62BRBDXuQr4PGXTQveZagVYsHFZjO7ARt101p7zGlE9pxoo/s320/DSC_0487.jpg" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"> Well, an artist by the name of S. Shaffer followed through on one of these “what if I put on a show where…” ideas with “Yosemite”. I wouldn’t say I dislike the show, but I wouldn’t call it art so much as a social experiment. The room is entirely illuminated in an electric blue light, and inside are a dozen or so paintings all identical in size. Each canvas is completely white, and in the middle is painted a “.jpg” icon with a photo file name underneath. The only difference on each painting is the name of the file, and one painting in the corner features a full-canvas painting of the boy in the .jpg icon, who I had never noticed before. Clever, right? </div><br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"> The best part about the show is watching people react to it. Many people just scoff and hustle through. Some people laugh. “This is great comedy. I would love to own any of these” I overheard one person say. Some people pause and analyze them like they’ve been trained to do with art. It really is funny watching someone contemplate paintings that are more or less identical, as if to say “well, its art. I’m supposed to stand and look at it right?” </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj253yG-XLg8GgMaOccfg4ndIhvQcHZkKqdo6pX8cf3tMzi6Pdn8PzI85t_by_CHzUuJ1v6iRqv62W0ssYsYqWSappqPzbQiO6FFsQpOEbmccdpQMBKgURQ-B6Qa5rYYH6by004hvfOTZM/s1600/DSC_0490.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="133" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj253yG-XLg8GgMaOccfg4ndIhvQcHZkKqdo6pX8cf3tMzi6Pdn8PzI85t_by_CHzUuJ1v6iRqv62W0ssYsYqWSappqPzbQiO6FFsQpOEbmccdpQMBKgURQ-B6Qa5rYYH6by004hvfOTZM/s200/DSC_0490.jpg" width="200" /></a></div> I don’t know much about the artist, or even his first name, because he neglected to put it on his artist statement, which reads like a manifesto (I’m referring to the artist as masculine based on the tone of the statement). On its own the show comes off as tongue-in-cheek, but the statement confuses this idea with comments like “nostalgia becomes a thing of the future where anticipation and memory finally make amends in fond and unrelenting dreams of the apocalypse” and “time collapses, horizon lines disappear and reappear without meaning along compressed expanses of virtual highway – the present tense – where roadside bombs share equal time with spicy cucumber salads.” Huh? The text builds from small font to larger, finally capping at “inevitability is the new idealism.” Again, huh? He goes on to claim good painting (and supposedly his) poses a choice. <br />
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So does that mean that painters that paint pictures make inevitable work because it doesn’t let the viewer choose what the picture should be, and if it’s inevitable then that makes it idealistic, and that’s a bad thing like spicy cucumber salad???? Maybe the guy really is nuts. But at the very least he does need to be credited for the extraordinary talent of hand-painting the same thing over and over again with perfect precision, which I suppose doesn’t help in making him look any less nuts.<br />
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<strong><span style="font-size: large;">BEST IN SHOW- Anne Garney at studio b</span></strong><br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy34YaRG6ZxzaDd5ZRXE4lIo_xbj0TiLT30lMKsHRnZ_yPkzXU5PT1jNrLzywYYs2V4xx5xgCIFhDB_l6UrlxmWlC18OXLQCR5Y5DBfhyphenhyphen8GpGqIJ4mGS0i9k5MTMmbj9tndnlnKiN_aXQ/s1600/DSC_0495.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy34YaRG6ZxzaDd5ZRXE4lIo_xbj0TiLT30lMKsHRnZ_yPkzXU5PT1jNrLzywYYs2V4xx5xgCIFhDB_l6UrlxmWlC18OXLQCR5Y5DBfhyphenhyphen8GpGqIJ4mGS0i9k5MTMmbj9tndnlnKiN_aXQ/s320/DSC_0495.jpg" /></a></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"> I’m giving the best-in-show award for this First Friday to Anne Garney. Her style of painting and subject matter is very simple, but her technique and color choices really make the work something special. The bright orange outlines energize everything in the picture plane without being overpowering because the rest of the color selection is so bright. The hyper-realistic colors work together in a way that makes sense, and the images feel like vivid fantasies. I feel like a little kid again when I look at these, back when the world was a mystical place that, for all you know, there could be a place that looks exactly like that painting does, and you want to go there and see it. </div></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg00ct1TX73g_l4la7QwY91L_R8-NKMAb46pc9q_cpmQrIYMXTHtaAnseqdM7_VYb1a_fG4aFv3haV9RvfeMAOH3CYz-xY-_HN9WcarnJg6vQuTxI8AYcwnnXW4dUr_REP11uvsD72sP-8/s1600/DSC_0497.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" ox="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg00ct1TX73g_l4la7QwY91L_R8-NKMAb46pc9q_cpmQrIYMXTHtaAnseqdM7_VYb1a_fG4aFv3haV9RvfeMAOH3CYz-xY-_HN9WcarnJg6vQuTxI8AYcwnnXW4dUr_REP11uvsD72sP-8/s320/DSC_0497.jpg" /></a> I get really excited looking at Garney’s paintings, and that’s what art is all about. It’s not necessary to have a super-complex concept to make great art, all you need is a clear vision of what excites you about the world and that energy will be perceived and appreciated by at least one person. For Anne’s prize as best-in-show for First Friday, September, 2010, I will do some promo work for her. I encourage you to visit her site <a href="http://annegarneypaintings.com/">here</a> and see more for yourself.</div></div>mkuhlmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04592066268729442981noreply@blogger.com0