Continuing through October 20, 2012
Nic Nicosia’s current show of mixed media works nearly devoid of color, dubbed “dreams and other stories,” sometimes operates as a baptism by somnambulism. You’re summoned into a cryptic world of eerie, nighttime pulse-quickening moments. One work, "it started with a scream," is a voyage into the underbelly of dreamy messiness. It begins with a depiction of stacked rectangles — what I assume to be an orderly world knocked slightly askew — and quickly devolves into an undertow presided over by a strange woman (the anima?) who seems caught and captured in the circular space of an old-fashioned vinyl record. She exhibits a nineteen-fifties, “Where’s my martini?” kind of wry sensibility. Moreover, she’s dainty and whimsical with a hefty side-dish of sexy insouciance.
From there we enter a vortex of sorts. It comes to us via a photograph of wire or other circular material that captures and cordons us off — thus alienating us from the first installment and initial experience — the stacked and semi-orderly world of perimeters. Lastly, we enter what appears to be a huge and hulking dendrite. It could be the interstices of the synapses that conjured the whole “dream.” Or not. Only the artist knows for sure. But no matter. It’s intriguing. It’s enigmatic and represents yet another cycle of evolution in the formidable work of Mr. Nicosia.
