ART REVIEWS

Alternating light and dark values define the guitar player’s silhouette, otherwise camouflaged by the similarly colored figures reiterated in the background. Figure and ground are visually resolved only by a slightly reduced scale and perspective of the tourists marching across the frame towards the left in counterpoint to the stationary, right-facing guitarist. This gives the viewer’s visual cortex a satisfying workout. Meanwhile, I get the sense that this trio of lock-step passer-bys still manage to bump into each other.

Callahan’s tight draftsmanship has the perfectly proportioned fret board of the guitar accurately joined to the body at the 14th fret which suggests that this rendering may be based on a photograph, in which case the perspective would indicate a 80 or 100mm lens. The wrought iron fence resonates (visually) with the guitar fret board. The slight skew puts them just far enough out of tune to make it close enough for jazz.

The unusual border cropping accommodates a path for the three pedestrians as much as elbow room for the star of the show (who appears to be humming, whistling, or just absorbed in his work). I imagine his open guitar case, just out of the picture, filled with coins and crumpled bills. The guy probably makes more than me.

The diffused lighting suggests a humid atmosphere and keeps the contrast values low. The color scheme is non-critical but consistent – somewhere in a range between bayou blue and willow green. The warm-colored soundboard is appropriately vibrant amidst the cool surroundings as the musician (with his studio tan and perfectly flexed arm) thumps out his New Orleans boogie-woogie bass line. All in all this is a very entertaining piece indeed. Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Gary Peterson

In his work “Centered Circle” Witherow demonstrates the efficacy of simple geometry, proving that the eye goes to the strongest link when there are no weak ones to be seen. The implied forms and artifacts in these acrylic paintings often tease the boundaries of his canvasses, prodding and receding at will.

In “Quiet Tropics,” a ghostly grisaille of Mayan motifs puts its cultural impression on the mysterious botanicals as it overlays the warm, marbleized background.

The work entitled “Red White and Very Blue” reveals the subtle nuance of the artist’s intent and process, giving the viewer a sense of clairvoyance. This hierarchal schematic evokes, at once, both sea and shore or desert and sky, while “Celestial Navigations” (shown here) seems to codify some ancient objects of time keeping and space travel: clocks and calendars and compasses all etched in the figure and ground of terra firma and the universe that contains it.

“Silent Barking Dog” is gestural to a fine degree. I’m reminded of the works of Cy Twombley. It depicts the visual remnants of sounds that never were. The lines are ensconced in a solid wall of radiant color. I prefer Witherow’s earthy palettes to some of his more pastel hues. Again the border cropping in this piece is masterful.

There is a diagram - a map to the remains of a dead horse in the desert. O.K., that’s my interpretation but “Olfactory Stimulus” seems like an aerial survey of some plat of land. Witherow attributes Francis Bacon as an influence on this one but I'd say it's more like the work of his contemporary, Dan Namingha – that is, less hallucinogenic and more enchanted. This southwest mesa-top vision plays on the threshold of recognition in a way that’s as emblematic as it is symbolic. The bordering sky is as deep as space itself.

Resonance is a fitting term with Witherow’s oeuvre – a vast and worthy body of works. It rides on a wavelength the amplitude of which straddles representation at the moment abstraction. His are works that evoke the visions of lucid twilight sleep when everything essential presents itself to the mind’s eye and the dreams become those that we can't wait to get back to.

Gary Peterson

The Gem Seeker is a site-specific piece that compliments the patio on which it is seen. Way more than lawn sculpture, it’s an elegant transfiguration of honest materials into a resourceful allegory by an idiosyncratic artist. The work is linear and fluid: an anthropomorphic figure with tubular limbs joined by aluminum blocks precisely milled by a tinker possessed with an other-worldly vision.

Each arm is grasping a facetted quartz crystal while The Gem Seeker’s head is tilted ever so slightly to examine the geodes for supernatural properties in the light of the day. This personified fixture has discovered an Apollinus-class gemstone, or it’s sparking up energy in the thermo-coupling that sprouts from its cap. Perhaps he’s just setting the atomic frequency of his quartz clock.

The Gem Seeker is philosophic in character, symbolizing the utilitarian principles of Mill or Bentham. He is the unassuming figurehead of Tongue-in-Cheekville, imbued with a wry, as opposed to dry, sense of humor. This is plumbing after all and I suspect that Tony is a guy who could achieve cold fusion in the kitchen sink just to power the dishwasher. If those crystals are piezoelectric then I’m tuned in to his wavelength.

Gary Peterson

These particular works of Peterson are visual puns, their intentions clear and execution masterful. It’s a madcap world, rendered in crayon, with colors and textures as effervescent as the brew swilled from a stubby-neck bottle in “Ole Knocks Back a Cool One.”

If the piece “Artists had a Picnic” isn’t exactly Manet’s “Le déjeuner sur l'herbe,” Peterson’s composition of curiously clad bohemians does serve as a backdrop for a splatter-fest of ketchup and mustard. Later that evening, perhaps, pen and ink is the perfect medium to portray the festively figurative “Momma Did the Moon Dance,” a rhythmic and lyrical piece in which the silver orb reverberates throughout the picture turning even the casual onlookers into participants in this moon-maiden scenario.

“The Persistence of Childhood Memories” conveys the surrealistic wonderment of a child with a Salvador Dali dolly. This theme recurs in “Master of Ceremonies” where a magician conjures up spectacular proof that he is not only a legend in his own mind, but in the viewer’s mind as well. It is cheesy, brassy, and fun as all get out. A darkly decorative piece then develops out of the nervous hatchings of Todd Peterson’s pen in the form of “Mutant Easter Bunnies in Limbo.” These fecund symbols of fertility are somewhat intergalactic in character suggesting a serious but amusing warp in the fabric of the universe. The view is cracked but the eggs are all in tact.

The unlikely juxtaposition of a snowman and a dragon entwine in the large drawing entitled “Ever Have One of Those Days?” It’s a comical nightmare no more disturbing than Saturday morning cartoons. And speaking of waking up, the man sawing Zs in “Grandpa and the Spiders” is oblivious to his predicament in this off-color (with the volume turned up) depiction of a dance party of spiders the size of potted ferns hanging from the ceiling.

The setting of “The Curious Case of Dorothy Gale” reminds me of Van Gogh’s feverish bedroom, only painted lavender. The irony here is poignant as an aged Dorothy acquiesces while the Land of Oz still looms over the horizon.

On a final Van Gogh note, “Vincent and the Asparagus” is a well-balanced composition: a poetic spoof of the master from Arles. But the golden light in which sunflowers flourish also nourishes a taste for asparagus and frosted donuts in this light-hearted indictment of the art world as perceived – and expertly rendered - by Todd Peterson.

Gary Peterson

These works range from an alarmingly distraught portrait like “Vail of Tears” to the ecstatic submersion of a moonlit face in the nebulous halo of dreamlike tresses that is “Morpheus Embrace.” The same spirituality imbues the work “Ascension,” a close up of a man, perhaps the face of mankind, in a perspective view that draws the eye, as well as the subject, upwards towards a vanishing point in the heavens. “Threshold” is like twilight sleep, a lucid reverie in alternating light and dark values from a color palette of both dusk and dawn.

A soundtrack to these images might include Leonard Cohen-like lyrics, but also the soulful sounds of abstract expressions like the music of Sonny Rollins. Todd Peterson’s iconic treatment of that jazz legend is an up-close and personal portrait in smoky tones of color and texture. As the tight-lipped musician honks the be-bop out of his tenor sax, his white whiskers imply wisdom and experience through Peterson’s draftsman-like touch.

In a demonstration of the creative process, his “Artist at Work” painting calms an acid flashback-like visage down to a harmonious composition of facial features and the fingers that seem to be holding the pose in place. In a more figurative piece, the nearly abstract “Long Goodbye” echoes the upper torso contours of a man and woman resigned to some inevitable separation of body and soul, the vacuum being filled by a maelstrom of cosmic dust and theatric props while the figures swirl into the bittersweet background of color and light.

The scrawled outlines and modeled highlights of “She” is poignant, reminding me of Matisse. The prominent contour of her shoulder and neck informs the other curves creating a flowing sonata of the female form. In another piece, stark strokes and gouges of red on a black and white tome to “Ahab” portray that sense of distress you feel when intimately lashed to a killer whale for the ride of your life.

A fitting finale to this opus of Peterson’s work is “She Talks to Angels.” This lovely, if glib, portrait has the rhythm and harmony of line, color, and composition that I’ve come to expect from Todd Peterson. The picture is figurative and narrative: a woman in casual conversation awaiting a reply - quite likely praise for the artist who rendered her.

Gary Peterson

Henderson's works are highly introspective due perhaps to his six years of naval service on a submarine, a challenging place to keeping one’s aesthetic sensibilities intact. His uncanny sense of color and form may have developed while maintaining his artistic equilibrium beneath the waves. His images are characteristically buoyant.

Now he is immersed in the exotic milieu of Venice and it reverberates from his canvasses, abstract visual dialogs that shimmer, glide, or take flight like birds in a piazza. They are mirthful yet reverent, sometimes playful but never frivolous. They luminesce like Venetian glass.

Michael Henderson’s artwork exudes emotion well-tempered with intelligence. His paintings are in a noumenal world of their own. In “Immerhin Schoen,” enmeshed figures test the threshold of meaning like the crystal ball ensconced in a structure of enigmatic symbols and words scrawled on the surface of this piece.

In Composition #10 the interplay of reds and blues set the stage for a smidgeon of teal to steal the show. The compartmentalized geometry compels the viewer’s eye as the paint strokes culminate in the artist's signature. Similarly, “Abstract with Black Date,” is like an oceanographic section. An exposed island of text dissolves beneath the surface as if seen through a diving mask or a periscope.

Composition #11 is a masterful maelstrom of color. Energized streaks of warm reds advance while the cool blues recede in a swirl beyond. A small white circle searches for the center of the hurricane. This joyous riot imparts an unexpectedly calming effect on the viewer.

Black & Tan #1 is a monochromatic construction in shades of rust. Dripping paint succumbs to gravity as it migrates away from the light. I’m reminded of a milkweed or a ball of exuberant cotton extracted from the linen surface of the picture plane. The figure in Black & Yellow Abstract is a bit more structured - maybe a beehive or birdhouse.

“My Garden in Venice” shows a semblance of the real world with sky, sea, and terra firma supporting the smattering of color that flourishes in the warm Venetian sun and a cool Adriatic breeze. “Woman in Red” is a reductive portrait more suggestive than figurative. I see a woman ambling along the canals and bridges of Venice. (I also hear the rhythmic clicking of high heels but I could be mistaken there).

The Untitled piece has shades and tints of ochre and cerulean and terra cotta. This image presents the highly distilled elements of Henderson’s visual idiom: the geometry, the self-containment, the point-source lighting, and the gestural lines which in this case have an Oriental flare. His brushstrokes are poetic.

Michael Henderson’s work is easy to look at yet meticulous in its execution. His style is consistent, distinctive, and wholly satisfying.

Gary Peterson

Spiziri’s color control in the portrait of "A Friend" is comparable to, say, Philip Pearlstein or Lucian Freud – but with a healthy glow. The artist demonstrates her mastery of line and form in narratives like "Nightmare" or the Francis Bacon-like meltdown entitled "Birth Then Death," as well as in the abstract drawings of “Section Segment Sequences” and the thinly veiled eroticism of "Taking a Nap." In "Enabling," a linear scrawl defines this curious organic entanglement between two lovers and "Figure Study" is an aperçu of exquisitely fluid lines.

I particularly like the images styled after the work of Amedeo Modigliani. The sensuality is profuse in Michelle’s "Portrait of a Girl." Her soulful eyes cut right through me. Similarly, "Mary Rose" is limpid and pale and starkly beautiful.

These pictures lead directly to the development and evolution of Michelle Spiziri’s “circle heads,” the acrylic painted personalities that embody pure emotion and fill numerous small scale canvasses. These characters have a childlike innocence imbued with adult sensibilities. They populate a world that is playful, painful, solemn and hopeful, a place where fairy tales come to grips with reality. They are naïve but dauntless like “Best Friends” - plus, they are good at balancing their big heads in the picture frame. They remind me of Zeng Jianyong's “Headers” but more informed; they are and as big-eyed as Margaret Keane’s waifs without the sugary sentiment (although Spiziri’s circle heads are as fun as a box of frosted cupcakes). If “Roxie Box’s” green eyes are more sad than soulful, then “Teenie Weenie” will cheer her up.

Here’s a fancy word: Physiognomy. Michelle Spirizi’s artwork lets the viewer read the minds of these colorful caricatures through their facial expressions and their posturing - sometimes poised like “Lulu” and sometimes awkward like a “Kiss on the Nose.” Their hand and arm gestures, precisely configured in context of each frame, are like semaphores conveying tacit messages. They animate their stories as well as any rapper or the hula girl.

In "Peek-A-Boo" a simple gesture elicits big smiles. The flow, rhythm, and precision are precariously perfect. In "Day Dreamer" an arm balances the head to accommodate a reverie, and the hands in "Mimi Heartache" could win an Oscar for their supporting role.

All in all, these works are incarnations of Michelle Spiziri's own indomitable personality. They are sad and joyful, poignant and sophisticated. We can all identify with "The Friendless Boy" who glibly aches for one good friend, but it's comforting to know that if Michelle can't always be there for you, she'll invent someone who can and will.

Gary Peterson

His images are like idealized specimens in a natural history museum, vignettes of life displayed in comfortable picture-planes. There are no loose ends in these well-balanced compositions. Both emblematic and decorative, they are each a tightly choreographed narrative, an existential play in which the viewer becomes viewed. Spanish in character, SACHA’s images remind me somewhat of Fernando Botero’s work without the steroids, or a pre-Cubist Picasso.

The colors are vibrant yet earthy and natural overall, although the sky blue skin of the "Woman With Raised Arms" glows in unexpected shades of moonlight as the oblique map of her body spreads across the canvas. "Woman Embracing Bull" and "Woman with Vase" also layer the pictorial elements with a natural sense of proportion and scale despite some adventurous contortion of limbs. The strength of these characters is in their form while the facial features evoke a style somewhere between Dali, Modigliani, and Peter Max.

Be fruitful and multiply. "Lover with Fetus" has élan vital. It exudes a youthful exuberance, the ripe fruit of the loins rendered so tightly that you can feel all three hearts beating. With the visual sonority of a finely tuned drum, it is an intimate ode to parenthood, serene and sedate but imbued with a palpable sense of animal instinct. The soft lighting effect of SACHA Circulism creates the illusion of exquisitely sculpted spaces.

The still-life paintings of fruit and flowers also have that pervading quality: a circular motion that resonates through each level from the basic forms to the undulating surfaces of the vessels and decorative backgrounds.

"Pears and Pears" conveys a sense of gravity. Although motion is not implied in this picture, there is a sensuous tension, the seductive pull of the earth. A fresh, hydrated vitality exudes from each canvas. Whether animal or vegetable, the figures in this series are slightly erotic and completely organic: No artificial preservatives added.

Meanwhile, the main figures in these artworks may intertwine, but not with the ground. In "Suffering Bonsai" the immaculate design and execution of the well-manicured leaves that adorn the background has the upstaged Bonsai tree contemplating a sober alternative: suicide. It is a visual witticism that suggests a nurturing hand that cannot seem to primp and prune the subject up to the lofty ideals of beauty and perfection that we’ve come to expect in the artwork of SACHA. Someone tell the despondent tree that I vote it the “best of show” before it’s too late.

Gary Peterson

“Art Is” does look deliberately commercial, like a brochure – synthetic and typographic. The flash of gold and gemstones are value-added clichés of quality with a seductive lure of “branding” – in this case a clinic on the Chuck Close aesthetic.

Eller’s style is iconic-ironic in “In Circles We Go,” another elegy to corporate culture with an institutional bent: a flow chart with his trademark lexicon of primitive and classical imagery including a recurring comi-tragic mask. This piece would look good on a museum wall or the information kiosk.

In “Sport” the sound of a starter’s pistol translates visually like a muzzle flash with the implied projectile being the fleet feet of track runners in the bright center stratum of the picture accentuated by the cylindrical shading of the adjacent graphic panels and punctuated by a controversial image from the ’68 Olympic Games. Eller’s strength is in the visual language of his narratives even if a bit esoteric in their translation. His work has an affinity with the appropriations of Robert Rauschenberg.

Many of Eller’s pieces have the “tubular” feel of Fernand Leger. “Fermentation” is a cut-and-paste manipulation par excellence with color saturated 3D graphics and enigmatic slogans nestled in calculated compartments of negative space between the grotesquely exaggerated icons of feminist anima.

“Them” is powerful in its nuance of divergence. The slightly off-kilter background compensates the book-matched symmetry of the sculpted stone faces which consist, eerily, of four identical halves of the same face. A bronze-aged luster and a silver and gold luminosity make the ambiguous countercurrents seem ever more urgent behind this stereoscopic subterfuge.

The photograph “Modern Monna” is a soft-lens irony in the vein of Richard Prince’s work but less cynical. It’s a candid shot, a reiteration of Mona Lisa’s obstinate stance by an art patron who apparently doesn’t subscribe to the DaVinci Code. Perfectly cropped, there is a glint of magenta light that reflects almost imperceptibly in the stone background. It’s an anecdotal and highly satisfying composition.

In his oil painting “Communion,” symbolism takes a back seat to formalism; there is no transubstantiation, only intoxication. The alternating Gestalt of light and dark of this compartmentalized confessional booth echoes with the wisdom of staying in one’s own comfort zone. The concoction is in that chalice has rocking-horse people seeing chemical symbols that morph into the camouflage of printed circuitry.

“Silhouette” is a flickering film clip projected onto the visual cortex of Ronald Eller’s brain; the isomorphic sense data of stimuli reverberating from an external world which is in turn a sequence of celluloid images and sound bites, the fundamental mode of which is perfectly tuned to its visual harmonics: the kind of cerebral calisthenics that make his work challenging.

Gary Peterson

The historic plaque in "Calle D Borbon" plays a formal role in this rectilinear composition, balancing its bright orange vertical counterpart while providing an anchor overall. The semiotics of its text engages the viewer's cognitive faculties despite the urgency of the fiery orange plume above it. Ragged flares interlace the edges of the color blocks – not unlike an aerial map of the Louisiana delta - as the orange consumes the rich and fertile darkness. The depth, warmth, and potency of these colors are enhanced by Angel Matamoros' craftsmanship, evoking a sense of weathered resistance to time in the distressed glaze of the surfaces. The deep pigments disperse colored light, whereas the loud, lively orange radiates its own heat like the celebrated nightlife of the French Quarter that resonates around every corner of this compelling canvas.

With its warm character distilled from the environs of southern Spain, "Madre Patria I" is as representational as Matamoros gets in this series of paintings. There is a sense of vastness as the eye penetrates the atmospheric depth beyond the sunny golden sidebar in the foreground and the warm cloudy radiance of sky above the horizon line. A regiment of small magenta squares gain pillow-like volume as they rise to extract color from the sky. These square pills rise above the horizon while floating on the same plane as the golden pillar that holds the picture plumb. That column of light stops just short of the horizon allowing the eye to traverse the entire width of the picture giving the viewer a distinct perspective relative to the vertical markers. The golden back painting visible beneath the scratches and scrawls of the mottled surface, gives a vital translucent frisson to this splendid work.

Angel Matamoros lends his fine sense of harmony and proportion to the color fields in his paintings. He instills a spiritual essence that persuades even disparate elements, edgy or diffuse, into blissful coexistence.

Gary Peterson

Gary Peterson

Roy uses her color palette as deftly as any painter, sometimes blending snips and twists of fabric in a transparent envelope to affect the luminance of the sky. The needlework, the stitching and flourishes of thread, has an élan vital as strong as any line work drawn by the hand of, say, Matisse or Klimt. Even the occasional swatches of printed patterns are perfectly suited to the compositions. The delicate embroidery of a flower is as stunning as if one stumbled across it while actually scaling those treacherous cliffs.

She shows a reverence for nature reminiscent of Oriental traditions. Each work conveys a sense of gravity yet uplifts the spirits to lofty heights. The surfaces are soft, even sensuous, in their rugged and ragged beauty. Light values are used to great effect. One feels the life forces in the terra firma and rarefied air surrounding the tree tops silhouetted in the bright heavens. These are artistic cross-sections of the ecosystem. Colorful strands of roots cling to the treacherous landscapes, penetrating the exposed strata of rock for nutrients, tenacious in their purpose as beadlike molecules fill the crags. Taproots meet bedrock. This distinctive X-ray vision is a trademark of Lorraine Roy’s work: The roots get equal billing to the crown. These fabri-scapes are like fine wine for the eye.

There’s a precarious balance between monolithic entrenchment and static cling in these spellbinding vignettes. Timeless echoes are muffled in the delicate hardscrabble of these cotton twill canyons. If I could walk along these patchwork escarpments, I might be compelled to hurl myself over the edge, and happily so.

Gary Peterson