meredith cutler :: arts marketing :: artist

Happy Friday, everyone. I'm full of granola and ready to leave the car at home today, for another fun-filled day of ambulatory adventure in sunny Providence. I'll make a stop back at the Convention Center for another go-round of the RISD graduate thesis show, which runs only through this weekend.

Above: "Exxon #1 from Route 66" by Greg Kordas - archival inkjet print

Speaking of leaving the car at home, I spent a cool $50 to top off my tank yesterday on my way to the studio. As I pondered why I'm spending more on gas than on art supplies, the work of RISD Photography MFA '08 graduate Grzegorz Kordas came to mind. Greg's large format, archival inkjet prints depict real gas stations, glowing like ethereal oasis in the inky black of infinity. He photographs his subjects at night, with a focus on the power of artificial light, and the consumptive behaviors it has been proven to trigger in us, the unsuspecting citizens of a greedy society.

My picks from the RISD Graduate Thesis Exhibition (on view at the Rhode Island Convention Center until June 1st) will be posted over the next several days, due to the fact that the show is enormous and I must return to give proper attention to each department's top talent.

This morning's post is focused on the Textile department's 2008 MFA candidates. Weaver Michael Radyk explores the revelatory and veiling properties of the woven textile form through experimentation with a variety of modern fibers. His large wall hanging, "Swan Point", best exemplifies this direction.

Unlike the flanking pieces, underwhelming efforts with the plastic cord commonly known as "gimp" (ubiquitous to summer camp craft projects), that brought to mind the now widely popular Chilewich placemats, "Swan Point" expertly utilizes materials to express information on several levels, both physically and conceptually. Finely woven from recycled polyester, coat vinyl and nylon, the underlying structure resembles an ancient scroll, coded in modern braille. As if to signify an organic transition from written record to ancient relic, hairy fiber tufts sprout from the grid in a cascading pallete of papyrus neutrals and stony grey.

On the representational and functional side of textiles, Natalie Wright displayed an 8'x11' section of digitally printed wallpaper depicting a complex family portrait originally compiled from 80 individual drawings.

The stylized portraits retain an informal, snapshot quality, while the high-contrast black and white design pushes back at the viewer, negating the staid, environmental comfort of wallpaper. As much as I enjoy this type of work, I wished to see this design realized in different colorways, either more daring or diffuse.

Stay tuned for more mini reviews as I swing through the departmental roster...

ALLISON PASCHKE
5 Traverse Gallery
May 9th – June 14th, 2008

<<--CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE FULL ARTICLE-->>

By Meredith Cutler (for Artscope Magazine)

Allison Paschke’s studio overlooks the tangle of plunging asphalt where routes 195 and 95 skirt the Providence River, winding south to Narragansett Bay. A panoramic view takes in a swath of sky, brick, steel and the wink of ever-moving water. I ask whether the scene influences her new work, a series of square compositions built up over time in layers of pigmented resin over Mylar and mirrored acrylic sheet. She admits to avoiding time spent admiring the spectacular view so that she can better focus on the quiet voids, reflective color and subtle spaces of these paintings, which require a meditative focus to fully enter.

Regardless of her focused will, a hint of the glittering, peripheral realm of reality permeates the paintings’ glossy surfaces. Each abstract square composition contains an echo of its surroundings: the eggshell to violet hues of whitewashed wall and ceiling, the amber of well-worn floorboards, the cerulean and slate of coastal Rhode Island’s ever changing sky and sea. It’s a pleasant revelation. As Pashcke notes, “When subtleties are fine, you become more sensitized to your environment.”

In the down-to-earth surroundings of 5 Traverse Gallery, Paschke’s Minimalist work can exist with less visual noise, a condition that lends itself to the quiet introspection her compositions inspire. As gallery director Jesse Smith observed, “Time flows through Allison’s latest work in abundance, giving the viewer a chance to slow down and wonder.”

Paschke, formerly a commercial photographer and graphic designer, has folded the physics and precision of her prior disciplines into a formal exploration of light and perceived space through works in ceramics and mixed media. She is known for creating “Portable Pieces”: small-scale, box-shaped sculptures that invite handling and exploration. This manipulation is a key to open the realms insinuated within their light-shifting components; as diverse as porcelain, rice paper, mirrored glass and cast resin.

“Silver Light Box” captures and holds ambient light in an enclosure made of cast resin sheets, joined and fitted over a 10”x10” tile of mirrored glass. Wall-mountable, but just as easily freestanding, the piece mimics a light source by virtue of its material properties.

Delicate “Despina”, named after an imaginary city in author Italo Calvino’s 1972 novel, “Invisible Cities”, offers the viewer a window into its interior, split down the center. Constructed simply of rice paper, varnish and pigment, each side of the window: one open, the other closed; trades value with the other from light to dark depending on the direction of the light source. It is this interplay of light, tonal value and space that stills the mind of the viewer.

Paschke’s newest work (less physical but similarly proportioned and investigative of spatial shifts) incorporates similar materials, but is focused in what Paschke dubs the “second-and-a-half dimension…where the work is pictorial, but the process gives it a material presence; pushing [the work further] towards the third dimension.”

Influenced in part by Persian miniature paintings, with their invented perspective and ambiguous points of view, Paschke strives to maintain a void in each composition, offering the viewer an opening with which to first enter into the image. Once the mind quiets, subtle line work and edge details emerge, suggesting a room or box rather than a flat, mirrored object.

Where the “Portable Pieces” manipulated light in spaces defined by a neutral palette, this new work pushes the physical properties of color on a different tier of the spectrum. Paschke strives to incorporate brilliant color through the use of gouache and ink mixed with resin; but, true to form, any leading hue is taken back in an effort to maintain the quiet, luminous stillness that is a signature of her artistic intention.

Friday sneaks up on you, which is no reason to cover your eyes and shriek. High gas prices have kept me a bit closer to home this week, and in my wanderings I've turned out a few Providence tidbits for your easy consumption.

For those who prefer one-stop shopping, hop on your jalopy and bike on down to Olneyville for a weekend of events at The Steel Yard. As part of their annual fundraiser, a full menu of celebratory events and competitions of kiln and foundry peaks with a "Steel Yard Is Burning" dance party on Saturday night.

DownCity, drop by the Gallery at 17 Peck for their special 3rd Anniversary exhibit and sale, pending their June move to a brand-spanking new location on Federal Hill. Particularly stunning: Malcom Furlow's acidicly edgy Coyote paintings.

Above: Malcolm Furlow: "Coyote In Providence", Acrylic on canvas 30"x36"

Across the "way" at 75 Weybosset, fit yourself with some sexy frames at Providence Optical. Now that you can see clearly, step up the winding staircase to Above Providence Optical Gallery, for a glimpse of "Your Idols", a series of close-cropped portraiture prints by Philipp Rumpf.

Opening tomorrow at Gail Cahalan Gallery, photographer Alexandra Broches' "The Natural World Redefined". Her "design-inspired", black and white prints feature collections of fragile, natural materials such as feathers, bone and eggshells. Broches will give a gallery talk on May 21st, 6:30pm. The show runs through June 7th.

The calendar page has turned, which brings an exciting new crop of gallery shows to focus those springtime wanderings. Time it right and you'll hit an opening reception, all the better to fulfil your early evening aperitif needs!

Make sure to visit 5 Traverse Gallery, where tomorrow evening, Rhode Island artist Allison Paschke will be opening a new exhibition of her mixed-media works in porcelain, cast-resin and layered pigments. Named after imaginary cities described in author Italo Calvino's 1972 novel: "Invisible Cities", Paschke's "Portable Pieces" invite handling and exploration; an adventure required to unlock the magical, invented spaces insinuated within their modest materials.

Above: Allison Paschke's "Despina", (7.25" x 5" x rice paper, varnish and pigment

Visitors to 5 Traverse will have a chance to encounter Paschke's newest work, scaled back into the "second and a half" dimension, which incorporates a bolder tier of the spectrum to invoke the quiet, imaginary perspectives inherent in the neutral pallete of her 3-D work.

Above: Allison Paschke's "Tabriz Study 1", (7" x 7"), resin and pigments on Mylar

Click here to read my full review, available in print in the May/June issue of Artscope Magazine. The exhibition will be on view from May 9th through June 14th.

On view in the Inner Space: Father and son Bill & Ben Shattuck, "2 Generations Aloft"
5 Traverse Gallery: 5 Traverse Street, Providence, RI 02906. 401.278.4968 / info@5traverse.com