Continuing through January 10, 2015
In “Cracks in the Light” Suzan Woodruff explores ephemeral abstraction with aqueous shape and color. This work is evocative of dye dripping into water, ocean water receding from the shore or the view from a telescope towards distant galaxies. The paintings constantly morph and erupt in transient movement. Paticularly effective are those that are finished with a polymer varnish that intensify the frozen nature and fleeting moments of Woodruff’s dreams or cosmic landscapes.
Tom Martinelli’s process-based “Vertical Stripe Paintings” date from the early 1990s. The artist used gravity to create a dynamic minimalism that is reminiscent of barcodes, sandblasted walls and snapshots of everyday life. Upon closer inspection, the textured work reveals the intricacies of pigment and the artist’s true intention: to understand how gradient is created through a natural process of dripping down a painting, losing more and more pigment as it travels towards the bottom of the canvas.
The two shows meditate on the journey pigment takes on a canvas, how it may be contained, the parameters and stipulations of the medium and ultimately how the viewer interprets these paintings for themselves; contained like these pigments in their consciousness, both real and imaginary.
