Can Minimalism’s geometry, impenetrable surfaces and modular units be recast with feeling? Theodora Varnay Jones answers with an emphatic yes.
Reviews
Richard Gilles @ B. Sakata Garo
Richard Gilles’ photo aren’t just about our wrecked economy. They document the void that exists between cities, suburbs, mountains and farmland.
David Wetzl @ JAYJAY
David Wetzl’s paintings attempt to make sense of the anarchy of human history. You may disagree with his positive forecast, but you can’t help but marvel at his inventiveness.
‘Afterlife’ @ SJICA
This show of “re-purposed” junk demonstrates how socially relevant art can spring from idiosyncratic, personal investigations and material invention.
Robert Brady @ B. Sakata Garo
Bob Brady works with the figure, but the figure hasn’t really his subject. Like a jazz instrumentalist who uses song structure for self-expression, Brady is all about stretching his materials.
Hattori and Essoe @ Swarm
With mixed-media light-boxes, Hattori comes to terms with war and memory. Essoe, using video, installation and still photography, addresses the existential conundrum of suburbia.
Peter Honig @ Mercury 20
Peter Honig uses the conventions of commercial photography to subvert the consumer desires with a style applies Dadist and Surrealist sensibilities to set-up photography.
Profile: Peter VandenBerge
There’s plenty of mystery in Peter VandenBerge’s elongated, primitive faces; but their punch comes from a distinct brand of ‘60s-era, Duchamp-influenced absurdism.
‘Keepers’ @ Skinner/Howard
The title of this show, curated by Aaron Petersen, suggests possession and certitude, but the works themselves traffic in mystery and ambiguity.
Phil Amrhein @ Axis Gallery
Many artists have stared at, painted and even feigned leaping into The Void. But few do so as energetically as Phil Amrhein.
Deborah Oropallo @ Wirtz & Gallery 16
These seductively posed apparitions drive us to question whether what we’re seeing. It is photography, painting or some new hybrid?
Rex Ray @ Gallery 16
Employing a boggling array of shapes, textures and colors, Rex Ray’s collages resemble mash-ups of ’50-style home décor motifs, extraterrestrial floral fantasies and symbolist imagery.
JENN SHIFFLET @ CHANDRA CERRITO
Jenn Shifflet’s paintings are like pools of light emanating from indeterminate sources. They exist in a brackish wash of terrestrial, aquatic and celestial atmospherics.
Joan Moment @ LIMN & JAYJAY
Joan Moment’s paintings suggest that we exist outside of time and space: that we are at once everywhere and nowhere — like stars and galaxies whose images are history before they even reach us.
Enrique Chagoya @ Electric Works
Enrique Chagoya builds on his love of pop culture, European high art and his knowledge of the dark side of sunny American optimism.
Paper Mylar Vellum @ Brian Gross
The goal was simply to showcase works from the gallery’s estimable stable. The result was one the strongest summer group shows in San Francisco.