art current: Spindleworks

Below is a link to my art current column about Spindleworks, a non-profit organization that offers creative outlets for people with disabilities. A visit with them triggered some musings about the art world in general too. The work featured here is by Tom Ridlon.

http://freepressonline.com/main.asp?SectionID=50&SubSectionID=72&ArticleID=10346&TM=53643.58

art current: Ben Potter at Unity College

Ben Potter has a small but fabulous show at Unity College where he teaches. Here's the link to my review of it: http://freepressonline.com/main.asp?SectionID=50&SubSectionID=72&ArticleID=10272&TM=32836.67

above: Sanborn Pond, 2010; gouache on paper, 25 x 44 in.

below: Kelp, 2010; industrial felt and afghan, 24 x 31 in.

art current: "Maps" at June Fitzpatrick Gallery

Review of June Fitzpatrick's show Maps for The Free Press.

http://freepressonline.com/main.asp?FromHome=1&TypeID=1&ArticleID=9951&SectionID=50&SubSectionID=72

images are by Shannon Rankin and Jeff Woodbury

art current: Dialogue with Connie Hayes

In this art current column for The Free Press i mused aloud about landscape painting in Maine and asked painter Connie Hayes about her personal strategies to keep her work fresh.

http://freepressonline.com/main.asp?SectionID=50&SubSectionID=268&TM=52977.78

Connie Hayes, Pink Drifter, Vinalhaven, 2006; oil on canvas, 12 x 12 in.

Just Seen and Dashed Off - Jeff Badger

Did you ever want to know how to solve life's big questions? Or the universe's? Or what would have happened if you had not said “no”? Jeff Badger will tell you.

He has left his trees capable of human emotion behind, and now has several ink on paper drawings as well as one site-specific wall drawing in Whitney Art Works' I'm just sayin/I know right? which also includes work by Cliff Baldwin, Adriane Herman, and Megan O'Connell. Be prepared to spend some time with Badger's creations. They are immensely worth it. With line drawings and cartoonish images Badger develops some simple and some incredibly complex structures of argument, likelihood, and could-have-beens. Applying scientific reasoning to life's uncertainties in the form of charts and diagrams has the desired effect of pointing out life's follies. Developing alternatives branching out from “yes” and “no” options, small choices develop into world-shattering events. Or not. Depending on which way you go.

Here's an example of options in How Shall We Make Our Feelings Known: “Art” or “Actions” or “Words” (written or oral) or “physical contact” (violence or affection, the latter's options are protect, foot rub, radio request, tandem bike, wink, hearty handshake, or groom) or “gift.”
Or here's What Should We Sew: “Frankenstein” or “Heavy Metal Patch on Denim Jacket” or “Voodoo doll” or “button” or “makeshift sail” (branching out into “survival raft leaving lonely island”) or “sampler.” Nice capturing of the spectrum of human quirks. For all its lightheartedness though, Badger does address issues of global impact, philosophical depth, and touching emotional uncertainty.

I'm just sayin/I know right? is on view until November 20, 2010 at Whitney Art Works, 492 Congress Street, Portland - 207.780.0700 - http://www.whitneyartworks.com/

Just Seen and Dashed Off - Petah Coyne

Everything That Rises Must Converge, the title of a Flannery O'Connor short story is also the title of Petah Coyne's current exhibition at MASS MoCA. In the institution's typically large and far from pristine galleries Coyne's sculpture shines, rivets, and may make you feel uncomfortable. And that is good. You should feel that way.

I was first introduced to Petah Coyne in 1996 when i worked at the Corcoran Gallery of Art where Terrie Sultan organized a fantastic one-gallery show of Coyne's sculptures and i had the opportunity to do a studio visit with the artist. I have been following her work ever since and could not pass up this chance to see so much of her work in one place.

The MASS MoCA exhibition assembles sculptures and photographs of the last two decades. I will focus here exclusively on the sculpture. Some of Coyne's early pieces that are suspended from the ceiling are made of materials as varied as black sand, chicken-wire, steel, cotton muslin, and mud, just to name a few components. These large black forms vaguely suggest an anatomical heart, a whirl of movement, or the gravity of emotions respectively.

The thoroughly haunting Untitled #720 (Eguchi's Ghost) was inspired by the protagonist in a story by Yasunari Kawabata. Suspended in mid-air and roughly following the contours of a seated body, the sculpture appears animated, filled with a living presence, yet devoid of life at the same time. The medium corroborates the work's mystery - what looks like greysilver horsehair is in fact a shredded aluminum airstream trailer.

But the tour de force of this installation is a large gallery containing work inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy. Like a swampy aviary, a multitude of taxidermied pheasants, peacocks, ducks, and one bobcat, are engulfed by black velvet and dark silkflowers dripping with black wax. In impossibly dramatic poses, they rip at our hearts and strain to inspire empathy, even if they are now only lifeless simulacra. These works state most forcefully, and admittedly not too subtly, what has activated Coyne's work over the decades. The danger of beauty. Its closeness to abjection, and the corollary play between repulsion and desire. She is in effect aiming to define her own sense of the sublime with all its associated terrors and joys.


Petah Coyne: Everything That Rises Must Converge is on view until April 11, 2011 - MASS MoCA, 1040 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA - http://www.massmoca.org/

Astrid Bowlby at Gallery Joe

Astrid Bowlby is currently showing work at Gallery Joe in Philadelphia. Light is up until November 13, 2010 - http://www.galleryjoe.com/
Following is the brochure text that i wrote specifically about one series in the exhibition, A Certain Density.


Light - or dark

Darkness and light are generally taken to be opposites of each other - poetically speaking, light equals life and darkness equals death. But what if there are always specks of life and light amidst darkness, what if darkness is built on light rather than being in contrast to it? Instead of a simplistic concept of dueling extremes that nevertheless entail each other, Astrid Bowlby's work suggests a relationship of more metaphysical complexity.

Since 1999 she has been working on a series of ink drawings on 11 x 8 1/2 inch Bristol board entitled A Certain Density. The artist draws freehand up to nine layers of extremely fine straight lines of ink, vertically, horizontally, and diagonally, which may sound like an instruction for a Sol LeWitt drawing. However, although rigorous, Bowlby's drawings are enlivened by constant variance and the artist's physical touch. Her eye guides her hand at all times, making decisions all along and carefully placing lines to control density and darkness.

Depending on how many layers of lines she applies to a piece, visual interest can shift from line to overall effect and tone. The black lines define intricate shapes of white background, which range from stars and octagons in more airy works, to mere specks that are barely visible with the naked eye in the denser pieces. Random accumulations of ink appear and seem to demand from us to recognize shapes in them, clouds, fog, concretions seen in nature. Bowlby has in fact been inspired by certain natural light conditions such as moonlight breaking through tangles of branches and leaves. So it is not surprising that the unevenness of tone in some of these works creates the illusion of openings and shimmering depths that suggest a geography of darkness. The drawings' rich patina of ink is further animated by an intricate texture of incised lines that invite the eye to follow after the artist's pen. It is also informative to note here that Bowlby is interested in physics, because some of light's main properties are frequency, intensity, and wavelength, all of which can be observed in the properties of the black lines.

The drawings of A Certain Density require a revision of expectations and adjustment of perception. In the process of layering lines, the works evolve from a black-on-white scheme to an allover black with a few white interruptions. The latter appear to be accentuating highlights but are in fact the background, thus calling into question the traditional figure-ground relationship. These drawings are not what they at first glance purport to be - black pieces of paper - but are white sheets that have been given obsessive attention and care. Dark is a version of light.