Exhibition: "Passing By," at Under Minerva Gallery and Event Space.

The Under Minerva Gallery’s current exhibition, "Passing By," running from March 6-April 11, presents us with the work of two artists, Eric Graham and Chris Hagerty.  The show is curated by Vanessa Juriga, and is accompanied, in the rear of the gallery, by the work of the 10 artists currently working in Under Minerva’s Artists’ Den, as is the gallery’s practice.  The latter I will review in a separate posting.

The "Passing By" show’s theme is given as “The abandonment of rural America for an urban existence.  Through an investigation of landscapes, isolation and the transformation of culture, both artists... [respond] to this drastic shift in society....”  Where these ideas are not perfectly explicit, they run throughout the exhibition in implied form.

The hanging of the show, which intersperses the two artists’ work, facilitates contrasts and comparisons between the two.  Both artists work with the “and”-ness of disparate juxtaposition.  Chris Hagerty shows us the more obvious juxtapositions in his consistently jarring combinations of malls painted in synthetic, flat, hard edged shapes, and sooty, grungy, immolations of automobiles, always depicted in a powdery touch.  Eric Graham, on the other hand, emphasizes the isolation of his objects by laying in flat grounds all about them.  These flat fields suggest, to me, not emptiness, but the contrast of flat paint with the house, or the window, or, whatever the chosen item.  It may be seen to negate the represented object, or, perhaps, to contrast it’s naturalness with the synthetic artificiality of art.  Whether this flatness represents some concept is open to conjecture.

In one of Mr. Graham’s pictures, “Reclamation,” 2008, what appears to be an adobe house in an arid landscape stands in eternal isolation with its partially caved in rafters of the front porch, broken windows, and a facade badly needing repointing, with red bricks showing through cracks.  I found the depiction of this subject rather handsome.  The isolating agent, in this case, is a coat of a sort of beige-brown.  Here I noticed some rather casual brush marks toward the upper center of the painting.  I hadn’t seen such visible casualness in any of the artist’s other backgrounds, and I tend to think of it as a stylistic “hiccup,” or a weak moment in the execution.  Opinions vary, of course, and the next viewer may be glad for reassuring evidence of the human hand.

Mr. Hagerty consistently sets up his views of urban dilapidation through openings in the mall architecture.  In Atlantic Mall and Wreck, 2008, the space underneath a broad, shallow arch and corridor reveals a mutilated car.  The contrasting handlings of the two sections, the pure pigment and clean edges of the one, vs. the grunge and grime of the other, bring together two locations onto the same plane.  Two coexisting but mutually exclusive states of mind appear before us.

In other pieces, again, Chris Hagerty shows us a war scene brought home to us.  The flat colors of the mall are apt to “burn” brighter than the nominal fire in the urban blight encroaching on the scene, with their unbridled optical vibrations.  This is the case especially in “Atlantic Center Mall and Wreck,” 2009, where the Christmasy, red and green alternating bands describing the escalator steps vibrate so eye-poppingly.

I return to Mr. Graham’s work to describe the piece I found the best by this artist in this exhibition.  “The Last Picture Show,” 2006, is set in a drive-in movie theater with an air of neglect.  The principal character on this scene seems to be a smokestack leaning in toward the left with a great deal of personality.  Here the artist seems to be at his finest in terms of object description.  He shows us the stack’s rusty-looking hat-like shape on top, with a very well observed surface.  The flaking of the paint reveals either silver metal patches underneath brown, rusty looking paint, or a lot of brown, rusty metal under some remnants of silver paint.  I couldn’t tell which it was.  But the depiction, somehow, had the sensation of the real.     

Under Minerva Gallery and Event Space

656 5th Ave., Brooklyn, NY 11215 (between 19th/20th St.)  

info@UnderMinerva.com

Gallery Hours: Tuesdays-Fridays 12-6 P. M..  Saturdays 2-6 P. M..

"(This) Woman's Work is Never Done: Celebration 44 Years of Art Making."

Dindga McCannon

Monet's Garden

Mixed media.

You are cordially invited to Dindga McCannon's (art-alive.com/dindga) one woman show titled “(This) Woman's Work is Never Done: Celebrating 44 years of Art Making,” at Hamilton Landmark Galleries, West 144th Street (between Amsterdam and Convent Ave's), Harlem, New York.  Opening: Wed. March 18 5-8 PM; Artist's Talk Sat., March 21, 3 PM.

Gallery hours: Wed-Sat. 7-11- PM

for more information call: (212) 863-9209

Hamilton Landmark Gallery
467 West 144th Street
Phone: (212) 281-7667
Email: hamiltonlandmark@hotmail.com

Curator: Kim Hamilton-Shakir

"Better Than Ever: Women Figurative Artists Who Created SoHo Co-ops in 1970s."

Ice Cream Sundae

Janet Fish

The Salena Gallery is hosting an art exhibition titled: “Better then Ever: Women Figurative Artists of the ‘70s SoHo Coops.”  The exhibition celebrates Women’s History Month, and will run from March 2 to March 27.  The Salena Gallery is situated on Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus in downtown Brooklyn, on the corner of Dekalb and Flatbush avenues.  

...According to curator and artist Sharyn Finnegan, “For those first couple of years, 50 percent of the artists in these early galleries were women, a very rare sort of art scene with women proportionately represented.  These pioneers validated the co-op model as a powerful engine for women artists to find a public in addition to a community that... support[ed] them in pursuing a professional career.”  Many faced overt discrimination from gallery directors, Finnegan noted, and took great pleasure in taking their careers into their own hands.

Nineteen women who were either founders, early members, or directors of galleries like A.I.R., Prince Street Gallery and SOHO20, are represented by one work from the ‘70s and another from recent years, giving a glimpse of the trajectory of their development.  The roots of Dotty Attie’s serial narratives can be seen in a portrait drawing of Ingres.  Early and late self-portraits show both the aging process and the maturation of a painting style in Marjorie Kramer and Sharyn Finnegan’s pieces. Current politics engage many now, with work about war by Attie, peace by Selina Trieff, and environmental degradation by Cynthia Mailman and Marcia Clark.

Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday/Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free.  

The Salena Gallery is convenient to the #2, 3, 4, and 5 trains to Nevis Street; the Q, R, W, and M trains to Dekalb Avenue, and the A, C, and G trains to Hoytt Street.

For more information, call Nancy Grove at (718) 488-1198.

Media Contact: (718) 488-1015

Public Art Series #1: "Richard Haas Mural."

The Bar Building Mural (Dome)

by Richard Haas, 1983

Did you know there’s a Richard Haas mural in the lobby of The Bar Building (executed under the auspices of Ray Guzmán), right there, in midtown, Manhattan, near Times Square, and near Grand Central Terminal? If you’re a person like me, with a passion for art, period, and for art in public places, this knowledge really tickles you. Why? If you need a reason, it’s because it’s worth knowing that there are big, unique paintings to look at outside of museums; art occurs in your workaday world, also. When you think about it, It’s neat that the experience is not limited to Florence, Italy. O. K., no need to carry the comparison further; it’s just neat.

Take what happened to me recently, as I walked on the avenue of The Americas. The unexpected thrill really hit me, when, as I passed 1290, 6th Avenue, I saw the big painting “America Today,” by Thomas Hart Benton, in the lobby. It was a museum going experience, right there in the midst of my day. I entered the building with baited breath, and started surveying the mad jumble of painted figures, swirling in circular patterns, like drips in some Jackson Pollock (who was Benton’s student, after all).

My camera lust took hold of me. Mostly, I go nowhere without my digital, and I use it, liberally, to document such encounters as this, or anything that strikes my fancy. I took out the camera. What happened next was less of a thrill. “No photos, please,” came the stern command from one of the lobby attendants behind the counter. Though deflated, I was polite. Although, after getting a last look at America Today, I left with revenge in mind.

The Bar Building Mural (Hallway)

by Richard Haas, 1983.

My revenge? To have a good life and go just a little further downtown, to The Bar Building, at 36 West 44th, between 5th and 6th Avenues. There I could see another good painting, the Richard Haas. And this one has the advantage that, in the few times I’ve visited it, no one’s ever told me I couldn’t take a picture. And, furthermore, I know this piece more intimately than I know most pubic art; I got paint drips on my face as this one was being executed.

Yes, in my youth, way back in 1983, Ray Guzmán, a painter I knew, had been retained to paint this piece, and he hired me, as part of the crew, with two other fellows,Tim Heinz and John Dean. Well, the work on this project was grand for us, as artists. I remember we would work after hours and had the lobby to ourselves. I remember the challenge, the sweat, the smell of my scaffold mate’s post dinner cigar breath, and I remember “The Walrus.” The who? The Walrus; the heavy set lawyer-type with a big mustache. He’s the one who passed through the lobby, sometimes, making unnecessary, judgmental remarks.

The Bar Building Mural (Detail - Martin Van Buren.)

Richard Haas, 1983.

The mural's subject is decorative architectural elements and motifs related to the legal profession, such as the scales, the two-faced Roman God Janus, Blind Justice, and a series of eight portraits of luminaries from the legal profession such as Benjamin Cardozo and Martin Van Buren.

The Bar Building mural is executed in Keim paints on dry plaster (laid down ever so exquisitely by Italian workers.) It is executed in the typical Haas manner, that of simple, flat shapes, without incidental detail, in a light palette. This manner, which dominates the vast majority of the surface, is intrinsically pleasant. It’s in the part of the hallway's busts, and the figure of Justice that's there also, the latter handled by Ray Guzmán, in which a bit of painterly brush handling comes into play (the part I considered the most fun to do). There was also, initially, four marbleized columns underneath the dome, handled brilliantly by Mr. Guzmán. I always found them thrilling for their brightness of color and their verisimilitude. Sadly, they were removed, at some point.

As I’ve indicated, I’m a fan of public art. I hereby state my intention to blog on a weekly basis about public art. In the near future I will present Tova Snyder’s work, some of the beautiful subway tile murals I’ve seen, and the statue of General Sherman, near the Plaza Hotel, among others.

All Richard Haas images used by permission.

Janet Goldner and Mali.

"The 5th Cardinal Point (The Point of Water.)"

by Janet Goldner 

Welded Steel, 2009

Approximately 48" X 72"

           A piece of sculpture made up of about 30 shaped and welded pieces of steel interspersed on the wall of sculptor Janet Goldner’s Tribeca studio called my attention.  “That piece is titled “The Fifth Cardinal Point (The Point of Water),’” she explained.  "In addition to north, south, east and west, in Bamana culture there is also the point of water,” she further explains.

   Janet Goldner has traveled back and fourth from Mali to New York for many years, on a yearly basis.  She took her first trip to west Africa in 1973, spending 3 months in Ghana as part  of a study abroad program sponsored by The Experiment in International Living, Brattleboro, Vt.  That time she spent the whole year in West Africa.  It took her a long time to conclude that she could return there on her own.  Finally, she did so in 1985 as a participant in the U. N. Women’s Conference in Nairobi.  Then, in 1994-1995 she received a Fulbright to do research in Mali, working with potters, blacksmiths and contemporary artists.  She spent 8 months there on that occasion.  Since then she has returned on a yearly basis.

        The culture of Mali holds a strong pull for Ms. Goldner.  But she was very affected by the devastation inflicted on it by the region’s colonial history.  The French colonizers succeeded so well in suppressing the country’s native culture that many of its vital elements disappeared or were seriously compromised.  Many aware people living there today conduct ongoing discussions and debates in the effort to pin down the truth of Mali’s history and cultural identity.

             Janet Goldner’s personal goal is to provide support to the ongoing campaign of cultural recovery there.  To that end, Janet works with the Malian group called Groupe Bogolan Kasobane, composed of 6 artists working collectively and individually since the late 1970’s.  One of the group’s successes is the world wide reintroduction of mud cloth (bogolan), which had nearly disappeared.  She also has an ongoing collaborative relationship with a Philadelphia group called Cosacosa.  Janet is slated to conduct interviews in, and photograph its project about community and family in Mali, documentation that will be published on the web. The project will take place in Mali this summer and in Philadelphia next fall.

 

            Mali is the largest producer of cotton in Africa, yet the last factory that produced cotton cards (the necessary tool used to comb out cotton for spinning) closed in West Africa in 1958.  A partnership with a Malian individual has also allowed Janet to aid in the production of cotton cards for distribution to Malian fabric manufacturers.

             Janet Goldner communicates roughly in Bamanakan, the language spoken within the native Bamana culture.  In many parts of the land she also communicates, orally, in her quite fluent French.  She has built many strong relationships there.

             Janet Goldner remains in New York from 2/3 to 3/4 of each year.  She makes art in both places, but, so far, her time in New York has been more conducive to the production of finished art, while Mali calls her to be out in the culture more.  She feels she is “always in both places,” rather than always looking back to her stays in Mali.  Yet her art continues to take influence from her African experience.

Ms. Goldner recently received a Fulbright Specialist Grant to teach at the Art Conservatory in Mali, where she will be going in May.  

Welded steel sculpture

by Janet Goldner

Approximately 36" high.

Petition for a Secretary of the Arts

Mr. Quincy Jones has begun a massive campaign to urge President Obama to create a cabinet level position of Secretary of the Arts.  To view the petition go to the following link:
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/esnyc/petition.htm   I agree with the intent of this petition and urge all who wish to see the arts respected to view and sign the petition.

"The 'O!' Show," at Kenise Barnes Fine Art.

"Starr Street Haze"

Josette Urso

Oil on canvas, 2008

48x36

Kenise Barnes Fine Arts, an ambitious art space in Larchmont, New York, is hosting an exhibition curated by Katarina Wong, with Kenise Barnes, titled The “O!” Show (also on the web at: http://www.kbfa-the-o-show-.com)  The premise of the show is to share the “optimism, enthusiasm and buoyancy,” inspired in so many by the outcome of the last election, though it makes no overt political statement.  It would have been mounted shortly after the election, but prior scheduling at Kenise Barnes’ space precluded this.  

It may be that the artists presenting their work in this show would have worked in just the same way if the theme had not been proposed to them.  But the theme was, indeed proposed, and so it functions as a point of focus for the artists and for the public.  In so saying, I maintain that the artists’ own inspiration, plus the curatorial framework, leads art to perform a social function, despite its lack of a political role in the real world.  This visual poetry facilitates a meditation on what the 44th American President engenders in so many, not only in our nation, but around the world.

I saw the artwork during the process of installation, but I’m confident that, at the opening, the viewers felt much the same joy I did when I regarded it.  My first glance, without much concentration or scrutiny, imparted that definite joy through lively color, and a certain variety and deftness.  On looking more closely I was not disappointed.

The artists participating in The “O!” Show are the following: Jonathan Allen, Hovey Brock, Beth Dary, Josette Urso, Andra Samelson, Susan Chrysler White, and Katarina Wong.  A brief discussion of a representative example of each person’s work follows.

Johathan Allen’s piece, “Be the i Pod,” paint and ink on paper, 2008, struck me as the funniest piece I’ve seen in a while.  The work, organized in a way this artist favors, with collaged parts, and other sections that imitate collage through rendering media, breaks up the surface into an organized salad of crumpled passages with torn edges.  A leaf and vine motif, in the upper part of the work, mimics the emblematic white cord of the i Pod, which, itself, is seen distributed in four places, over fragments of the silhouetted enraptured i Pod listener.

Among Hovey Brock’s contributions is “The Pitch,” inks, watercolor, and acrylics on absorbent ground panel, 2008.  The piece, a 30” X 22” painting, is made with cut silk screens through which the artist has “forced” his paint.  As does this artist’s other work, it demonstrates a remarkable dissolution of matter, for the element of paint could quite convincingly convey the illusion of solidity and weight, yet this does quite the opposite.  The sheerest veils of color appear to actually lose their physical body, and become light itself.

Jossette Urso regales us with “Starr Street Haze,” 48x36," oil on canvas, 2008.  This work retains the ebullience, and, always, spontaneity, that I’ve seen in the artist’s work since I first saw it, in 1988, though this strain of work, in some ways, is quite a departure from her work of years ago.  And, here, perhaps more so than with much other art, it pays to see the actual work, rather than even the best photograph, because much of its quality is transmitted through the physicality of the brush stroke.  In the flesh the stroke retains the texture of every bristle.  This person does not belabor her statement.  

Beth Dary’s “Emanation,” glass, 2008, is comprised of glass bubbles of different sizes, lumped together into modules through the glass blowing process.  It transmits a great joy, and elicits the admiration due a person with the technical savvy to execute such a thing.  The large bubbles contain a volume of air sufficient to make them float on water, though the gallery will not exhibit this property.  Their installation places them in the space’s front window, from where they cascade down to the floor level like the toys our children rough house with abandon then leave for the parent to pick up.  

“Valencea,” rhizomes, Styrofoam, acrylics and ink, 30” X 24” X 18”,  2008, by Andra Samelson, is a suspended piece, hanging from the ceiling by fishing line.  It is constructed as a meandering wire enclosing a volume of space, along which painted spheres occur periodically.  The coloring agents disguise the styrofoam quality, so I was surprised when I touched it gently, and discovered its true lightness.  The deep blue and white color combination used throughout the piece is quite handsome, and the unassuming materials render it approachable.

The sophisticated, tight rhythms in Susan Chrisler White’s paintings are among the things in this show that most say, “skill.”  She uses a rapid gesture that moves the eye forcefully, while retaining a fresh paint application.  These pieces defy immediate understanding as to the process of their construction.  They seem reminiscent of Rorschach tests, and may appear related to printing and even to the batik process.  But, in fact, they are paintings made on glass and then pressed onto the painting surface.  Ms. White’s versatility also produced the intricate and very lively colored system of hanging objects at the front of the gallery space.  

Katarina Wong’s intricate, “obsessive,” magical, special effects vortex drawing us irresistibly toward some distant, centrally located source of light, also shows a great deal of skill.  Ms. Wong is also an artist to use a fast gesture, and those entities undulating along the trajectory of what appears to be a vast amount of wire unrolled from what must have been a gargantuan spool, seem to move at a very rapid rate, indeed.  I imagine that if this painting had a soundtrack it would be one of those very driven, endless pieces by Phil Glass.

The O! Show will run from March 7 - 28, 2009.  Kenise Barnes Fine Art is located at 1955 Palmer Avenue, Larchmont, New York.  Travelers from New York City can reach it conveniently via The New Haven Line from Grand Central Terminal, which arrives there in 35 minutes.  The gallery is a short walking distance from the Larchmont Station.  Gallery Hours: Wednesday thru Saturday 10 – 6 and by appointment.  Call the gallery at: (914) 834-8077.

Exhibition: "Intimate Feasts."

  “Intimate Feasts,” a new show of Still Lifes by Sandra Bloodworth sandrabloodworth.com, opens today at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law, in the school’s 7th floor reading rooms.  As stated on her press release: “Bloodworth’s lush and colorful paintings celebrate the joys of her daily life, depicting shared moments of meals prepared by her husband and muse, Fred May.  Whether dining as a couple or with friends or family, Bloodworth and May have turned the daily routine of dining into an artistic collaboration that Bloodworth ultimately documents on canvas.” 

The immediate impression, on glancing over the entire show, is one of very even handling.  The handling appears even to the point of being predetermined.  This artist is not riddled with self-torture on some search for unconventional truth.  This art is born of stability, and expresses joy and thankfulness.  The paintings are uniformly clean of color and surface -- more than clean -- meticulous.  As though, as you would want no grunge or slovenliness to render your dining table unappetizing, you wouldn’t want such poor housekeeping to mar your viewing experience, either.  The artist deems the consumption of food and the viewing of her art that closely related.  

As you peruse these 33 paintings, don’t look for major “plot changes.”  Yet, within the narrow range of scope, the consistency in the vantage point, and the reliable sugar rush color, there is a good deal of change.  For, at every new dish, or table setting, or choice of flowers (flowers are a constant presence in the table settings), new color choices, the key characters on the stage, make a discreet entrance. 

These paintings function as full records of treasured meals, and cherished moments.  I asked Ms. Bloodworth, via the internet, to tell me the title of a painting.  I described the contents of the painting to her, and she came out with all of this: 

“ That was part of a Labor Day weekend with close childhood next door neighbors, and lifetime friends, and two other long time friends who come to Cape May....  It was their first trip to Cape May but not their first feast together!  One of many savored.  The dinner first course was Fred's tricolor goat cheese salad, and the entre with mussels was cioppino and grilled bread.  These friends always talk about the food and Fred is in his element.  While all the guests were artists... the talk that night was about food, wine and an adventure in a new and magical place.”  

“June 4, 2006, 2 PM.”

Sandra Bloodworth has exhibited widely.  She is known primarily as a figurative painter with an emphasis on portraits.  She is director of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Arts for Transit program  and a coauthor of Along the Way: MTA Arts for Transit.   

“Intimate Feasts” will be on view in the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law Library from March 5 through June 15, 2009.  The exhibition is open Sundays to Thursdays from 10 AM to 6 PM, and on Fridays from 10 AM to 4 PM.  Cardozo is at 55 Fifth Avenue at the corner of 12th Street in New York City.

Exhibition: "The Portrait: Painted and Personal."

Reggie (She Cried to Him.)

Giustina Surbone

oil on canvas

Tabla Rasa http://www.tablarasagallery.com whose name means “blank slate,” is about to celebrate its fourth year of operation on May first.  The name is appropriate, due to the gallery’s ground breaking role in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park, a neighborhood with a growing population of artists.  The setting’s talents and opportunities are surely still underexploited.

The show about to open at Tabla Rasa, The Portrait: Painted and Personal, was curated by Robin Ross and Giustina Surbone, two of the participating artists.  It brings us the work of 5 very self directed artists whose collective oeuvre is both individual and compatible.  The show also presents alternate concepts of the portrait, a thing that plays a central role in peoples’ lives, but which has a set and standardized function for much of humanity.  These portraits are art, and exercise all the freedom of choice to which they are so entitled.  These practitioners may not “place the shine on the tip of the nose, as [they] do on the arms of the chair.”

For example, Robin Gaynes-Bachman, in her large self portrait, shows us an image of the utmost artificiality.  This will perhaps be inescapable to art produced in the medium of polymer and phosphorescent pigment on vinyl, as these are.  The subject’s hair is of a brash green, and the colors elsewhere are similarly strident.  The artist clearly eschews all description in the ordinary sense of the word.

The other large piece by this artist that caught my eye was “Sorel In Love.”  In it, she made the interesting choice to subdivide the image into large blocks of color, each of which is covered with an evenly paced all-over pattern.  This suggests the marriage of traditional textile pattern with her modern age materials.

Interestingly, the pieces in the show that come closest to “straight” portraiture also belong to Robin Gaynes-Bachman.  They are in the section with her smaller pieces, a few of which show toddlers, a subject seemingly far away from progressive art.  Yet these toddlers (“Laverne’s Son as Baby,” “Paschanti as Baby,” and “Victor as Baby,”) drawn in bold, somewhat awkward contour lines, in the medium of polymer and marker on vinyl, remain evocative of the children’s rounded forms and tenderness, while conveying an unsentimental vision.

The human face’s power to engage us probably guarantees that there’s no such thing as a truly expressionless face.  Yet, though the giant face of a corpulent black man that engulfs the canvas in Giustina Surbone’s “Reggie (She Cried to Him)” might be described as showing a nondescript expression, some elicited emotion is inescapable.    The emphatic form-making and the tightly knit paint surface, conveying the weight of a massive bronze cast, may be the purveyor of whatever we feel.  And, of course, titles can be great sign posts for the story being conveyed.  Before this painting I asked myself, ‘she cried to him, and, what, he gave off no expression?’

Other pieces I found notable by this artist were the following.  “Mighty Mighty,” another large oil depicting a very fat woman holding flowers, which she wields with a step forward, as though about to thrust them at the viewer.  Again, the weight of the artists’ form building conveys the great presence at which she excels.  In “Drag #3: De-Dragging,” oil on canvas, a crossdresser's voluminous breasts balloon above the top edge of his corset.  He is exposed, but distractedly alone in the world, in transition, as he removes false eyelashes from his eye.  And, finally, “Emptiness & Anxiety,” a small oil, showing another transitory movement.  Her gaze turning to the viewer’s left, her mouth placed up to what might be a small hand held mirror, this woman’s movement might be the true subject of this portrait, as the character of a person’s features might be the subject of a more ordinary portrait.  Also interesting in this image are the hands, which claim a greater degree of focus than the surrounding forms due to their having been collaged onto the image.

“Inside the Green Drum,” an oil on canvas, struck me as the most successful of Robin Ross’s three large images in this show.  Here Ms. Ross builds up her surface, as she will, in amorphous waves of color.  The figure in the piece, ensconced within surroundings of indeterminate space, conveys some unnamed emotional state.  The cloud-like hues, reaching a crescendo in a flash of yellow light that is the figure, are all of a piece.  

Ms. Ross’s smaller pieces, all executed in oils and digital prints on wooden cigar boxes, deliver a concentrated visual payload, each succinct in its message.  There is “Taunt,” in which a woman, nude, bent forward at the waist, presenting her buttocks, seems at once sexually inviting and convulsed by some emotional upheaval.  The figure’s spatial orientation is ambiguous, and I found myself turning my head to see whether the painting was turned on its side, as I observed the piece.  It is, perhaps, this very quality that makes for its range of emotions.  “Graces,” shows two female dancers wearing what appear to be grass skirts, both on their toes with blue point shoes.  They are seen squarely from the back, both backs unclad.  So, this double portrait, which shows the faces not at all, has the two bodies’ movement as the element conveying identity.  That may seem to make no sense, but, recently, I was alone in a room, absorbed in a certain task from which I did not look up when someone entered the room.  The person was one of 15 individuals likely to have entered the room.  It was the shuffle of the person’s feet that announced to me, without a doubt, the person’s identity.  So, in art, as in life, we sometimes know a person by some aspect or quality other than the appearance of the person’s face.

Audrey Anastasi, with whom I spoke at the exhibition, explained to me that “Red Season,” a medium sized oil showing two women, one reclining behind the other, upright figure, was the first of the paintings she had executed with the left hand only.  Ms. Anastasi, who is right handed, took this on as an experiment to free up her handling.  Though some of her brushstrokes are crude, painting from the shoulder, rather than the wrist, has freed her to achieve a very forceful delivery.  Her figures, as evidenced by the entries in this show, are ambitious and massive, and completely unfettered by extraneous detail.   

In “Mythic Waters,” a dark skinned beautiful woman with platinum blonde curly hair presents the bare back of her torso to the viewer.  Both her fists, raised to the two upper corners of the canvas, are covered with African masks that have dual identities as boxing gloves.  This detail was suggested to the painter by the sitter’s own struggles as an African American in our society.  Here, again, Ms. Anastasi’s paint remains exuberant, fluid and sensual in the extreme, and her color lush.

“Cadaver,” Anastasi’s smallest oil in the show, is a macabre presentation of a deceased person, centrally, and vertically placed on the surface.  Paradoxically, Ms. Anastasi, relies on her habitual ease of handling, making a joy of the act of looking, despite the presence of death.  The indeterminate space she has used elsewhere remains in evidence here. 

Nana Deleplanque’s many masterful contributions to the show are all acrylics.  In “Sonia in Blue,” one of the small pictures, the artist does a breathtaking job with her direct, unlabored paint application.  She further arranges her surface with a sequence of ample shapes, which move the eye about, yet gives the eye a rest in the deft distribution of her visible white canvas, reds and neutrals.

In “The Emissary” Ms. Deleplanque’s figure is recognizable as a quotation of a Gauguin Tahitian figure.  Quotations of figures from other art recur in her work, but she makes them her own.  Next to the person’s figure a cow appears; a marvel of direct, deliciously casual paint application.  “Sonia,” another large image, is another marvel of directness.  This picture derives power from its basic black and white palette.  Six red spots, 4 on the sitter's lapels, 2 on her lips and right pupil, direct the viewer’s focus to the face.

In short, this is an exciting, coherent show, but one with much variety.  I hope many, many people will see it.  Tabla Rasa stands to make an important contribution to the Brooklyn art scene if it continues to mount such energetic and imaginative shows as this one.

The Portrait: Painted and Personal will be on view at the Tabla Rasa Gallery, 224 48 Street (between 2nd & 3rd Avenues), Brooklyn, NY, 11220.  The show runs from March 4 to April 3, 2009.  The opening reception is on Wednesday, March 4, from 6:00 - 8:00 pm. 

Please note: the gallery will host an artists talk titled, "What Inspires what is Personal?" on Saturday, March 21, at 3 P. M..

Admission to the Tabla Rasa Gallery is free.  Gallery hours are: 1:00 - 5:00 P. M., Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.  Call 718.833.9100 for special viewing appointments, and for events and schedule updates.

Transportation: from Manhattan, "D" or "N" express train to 36 Street in Brooklyn (3 stops from Manhattan), cross platform, and take "R" train one stop to 45th Street.  Street parking is also available.

Reach Tabla Rasa also at: info@TablaRasaGallery.com