POWER AT THE RIFFE!
HIGH POWERED VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE .
A vibrant multi-faceted show, New Horizons: Rewards of Time and Place, opened at the Riffe Gallery in down town Columbus on November 8 and will close on January 6, 2008. Sara Johnson, director at the Southern Ohio Museum in Portsmouth, curated this exhibit which is so excitingly eclectic and has been so elegantly hung.
NewHorizons gathers a range of work--from painting to sculpture to fiber arts--that was created during, or inspired by, Ohio Arts Council domestic residency grants . These grants allow artists to live and work in an art-centered facility outside Ohio for three months.
Such coast-rimmed places as The Fine Arts Work Center in Province Town, Mass; The Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, Ca. , and the Arts Center/South Florida in Miami, provided inspiration and available work time for 11 Ohio artists. The exhibit is an adventure. Each artist possesses a strong technique and more than a dash of daring- do. Rather than
"review" the entire exhibit I decided to give myself a Christmas gift and "go" with a few of my own emotional responses.
EMORY. Paul Emory's work tends to be large, on canvas, and painted with much strength--in color, composition, and the manipulation of paint. His prowess includes originality; his work is distinctly individual but not ostentatious. His "Horizon" paintings worked best for me when he allowed the slightly grotesque or daemonic/demonic,as in creative, to emerge. In FINCH KISS two large shiny birds,accurately painted, pause beak to beak! Quarreling
or kissing, no matter. Their circular background is puzzling, yet unabashed in color and balance. The painting succeeds-as a painting and as a contextual puzzle.
In Emory's CAGED a giant squirrel grinds and sputters nuts. The floor of the slatted cage is littered with shells. Two strangely fierce boys, their skin sun-tinged, hang from the side of the cage and stare at the squirrel.--In fear? In threat? No matter. They are like monkeys. The painting has impact. The"tight" largesse of the composition succeeds The white farm house and the vigilant farmer are barely visible. One thinks of Wlliam Saroyan's lines, "I had a dream to open cages and I did."
LAURA AND THE LORELIES! Laura Saunders knows how to paint water, large and small bodies of it, tranquil and stormy! She paints canvasses that sing to you from across the gallery. (I thought I heard the sea shore,and maybe I did.--After all, Todd Slaughter's humungus steel and fiberglass Red Riding Hood was guarding the Riffe outdoors. All things
are possible in art.) In Saunders' WAVE WITH CHILD, a large rectangular oil on canvas,--the water--a bay, an ocean, a lake, -- seems magical and turbulent and quite real. The artist gives us "the feel" of vastness by placing a diminutive young girl, a child in a white dress, to one side, and allows the child to trail a hand in the water. The child is unafraid. An unseen Mom, perhaps the painter herself , is near by. We know she is near by. She must be.
In DRAIN AND FILL, a grand three- canvas work, another child braves the water, this time in the center canvas, with two marvelous water studies--they are more than studies--on each side. This is not a sentimental painting but one of grandeur and reality.--If water has texture, Saunders knows how to paint it!
When I got back home I sat on the sofa. I remembered JuliaFriedman's big black paper sculpture of a tree.(Untitled cut-out paper, 84x54x10 inches) It cast a shadow and it was as tall as I am. I know it was paper because I touched it with the tip of my smallest finger, for a nano second! It reminded me of Turner Classic Movies, the infrequent times when Robert Osborne shows the1900s black and white Silhouette Silents on Sunday night.
I thought about Gerry Fogarty's Bamboo Lattice. BAMBOO LATTICE exalts simplicity. Fogarty collects, cuts, weaves, staples, glues,affixes. The results are awfully good,and the earth and indigenous cultures are celebrated.
Yes, back at home I sat on the sofa and imagined I was sitting in the sun in Douglas Unger's MARIETTA ALLEY SERIES with hollyhocks. I saw plant poles and a garden too. I chose a shell from my shell dish and held a shell to my ear. I heardLaura Saunder's oceans I saw LINDA GALL or someone who looked like her , having a great time at the beach and painting like mad.
I heard LACEY LUCE, Marketing Specialist at the RIFFE, say , "Each day I come in,and I ask myself what 's my favorite today, and it's always different."
--Don't miss New Horizons! --Take a notebook,write your own journal responses.
The Ohio Arts Council's Riffe Gallery is located at the Vern Riffe Center for Government and the Arts, 77 S. High St. Columbus, Ohio. Visit www.Riffe Gallery.org or phone 614-728-2239. Admission is free.
gtu
A vibrant multi-faceted show, New Horizons: Rewards of Time and Place, opened at the Riffe Gallery in down town Columbus on November 8 and will close on January 6, 2008. Sara Johnson, director at the Southern Ohio Museum in Portsmouth, curated this exhibit which is so excitingly eclectic and has been so elegantly hung.
NewHorizons gathers a range of work--from painting to sculpture to fiber arts--that was created during, or inspired by, Ohio Arts Council domestic residency grants . These grants allow artists to live and work in an art-centered facility outside Ohio for three months.
Such coast-rimmed places as The Fine Arts Work Center in Province Town, Mass; The Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito, Ca. , and the Arts Center/South Florida in Miami, provided inspiration and available work time for 11 Ohio artists. The exhibit is an adventure. Each artist possesses a strong technique and more than a dash of daring- do. Rather than
"review" the entire exhibit I decided to give myself a Christmas gift and "go" with a few of my own emotional responses.
EMORY. Paul Emory's work tends to be large, on canvas, and painted with much strength--in color, composition, and the manipulation of paint. His prowess includes originality; his work is distinctly individual but not ostentatious. His "Horizon" paintings worked best for me when he allowed the slightly grotesque or daemonic/demonic,as in creative, to emerge. In FINCH KISS two large shiny birds,accurately painted, pause beak to beak! Quarreling
or kissing, no matter. Their circular background is puzzling, yet unabashed in color and balance. The painting succeeds-as a painting and as a contextual puzzle.
In Emory's CAGED a giant squirrel grinds and sputters nuts. The floor of the slatted cage is littered with shells. Two strangely fierce boys, their skin sun-tinged, hang from the side of the cage and stare at the squirrel.--In fear? In threat? No matter. They are like monkeys. The painting has impact. The"tight" largesse of the composition succeeds The white farm house and the vigilant farmer are barely visible. One thinks of Wlliam Saroyan's lines, "I had a dream to open cages and I did."
LAURA AND THE LORELIES! Laura Saunders knows how to paint water, large and small bodies of it, tranquil and stormy! She paints canvasses that sing to you from across the gallery. (I thought I heard the sea shore,and maybe I did.--After all, Todd Slaughter's humungus steel and fiberglass Red Riding Hood was guarding the Riffe outdoors. All things
are possible in art.) In Saunders' WAVE WITH CHILD, a large rectangular oil on canvas,--the water--a bay, an ocean, a lake, -- seems magical and turbulent and quite real. The artist gives us "the feel" of vastness by placing a diminutive young girl, a child in a white dress, to one side, and allows the child to trail a hand in the water. The child is unafraid. An unseen Mom, perhaps the painter herself , is near by. We know she is near by. She must be.
In DRAIN AND FILL, a grand three- canvas work, another child braves the water, this time in the center canvas, with two marvelous water studies--they are more than studies--on each side. This is not a sentimental painting but one of grandeur and reality.--If water has texture, Saunders knows how to paint it!
When I got back home I sat on the sofa. I remembered JuliaFriedman's big black paper sculpture of a tree.(Untitled cut-out paper, 84x54x10 inches) It cast a shadow and it was as tall as I am. I know it was paper because I touched it with the tip of my smallest finger, for a nano second! It reminded me of Turner Classic Movies, the infrequent times when Robert Osborne shows the1900s black and white Silhouette Silents on Sunday night.
I thought about Gerry Fogarty's Bamboo Lattice. BAMBOO LATTICE exalts simplicity. Fogarty collects, cuts, weaves, staples, glues,affixes. The results are awfully good,and the earth and indigenous cultures are celebrated.
Yes, back at home I sat on the sofa and imagined I was sitting in the sun in Douglas Unger's MARIETTA ALLEY SERIES with hollyhocks. I saw plant poles and a garden too. I chose a shell from my shell dish and held a shell to my ear. I heardLaura Saunder's oceans I saw LINDA GALL or someone who looked like her , having a great time at the beach and painting like mad.
I heard LACEY LUCE, Marketing Specialist at the RIFFE, say , "Each day I come in,and I ask myself what 's my favorite today, and it's always different."
--Don't miss New Horizons! --Take a notebook,write your own journal responses.
The Ohio Arts Council's Riffe Gallery is located at the Vern Riffe Center for Government and the Arts, 77 S. High St. Columbus, Ohio. Visit www.Riffe Gallery.org or phone 614-728-2239. Admission is free.
gtu
posted by Liz James at 1:46 PM
