November Exhibit Review

 

November Exhibit Review by Olivia Tym

The November show at ARC Gallery features work by Mary Jane Duffy, Elaine Pawlowicz, and Garsot. Together, these three artists produce a vibrant and colorful body of work, yet the themes could not be more different. In the front space is Duffy’s exhibition entitled “Glimmer and Strife”, artistic renderings of maps of places in conflict, primarily in the Middle East. Pawlowicz’s “Cosmic Suburbia” series confront ideas of suburban isolation and the magical, sometimes surreal qualities of a neighborhood in which she spent time. The paintings in the rear exhibition space are from Garsot’s “Fantasy”, are an optimistic and colorful series that plays with ideas of cosmic beauty.

            Mary Jane Duffy’s works include eight small, black and white pieces developed from Google Maps.  These satellite images show specific, defined geographic areas of historical conflict such as 31 North, 141 E (Fukushima), 30 N, 31 E (Cairo), and 33 N, 36 E (Damascus). On these images she has drawn a series of red dots, white circles, border outlines, and other indications where violent events have occurred. The maps bring up ideas centered on war, violence, and globalization. Duffy transforms two of the smaller paper collage maps, Fukushima and Damascus, into large, painted canvases. Both of these works are done in an impressionistic style with the use of small, intersecting dots of paint. From a distance, they strongly resemble military camouflage. The browns, oranges, and greens utilized in Damascus are intended to resemble the natural landscape texture and color of that area. Similarly, Fukushima’s hues are done in blues to resemble the ocean, and deep, lush greens to visually represent the forests and grassy land of Japan. These intensely researched, complex works are a serious commentary on global disasters and force the viewer to be confronted with the realities of places around the world.

 

    Mary Jane Duffy Damascus 

 

    

    Mary Jane Duffy Fukushima

           

            Elaine Pawlowicz’s series depicts suburban ranch style homes on flat, empty landscapes with particular emphasis on their lawns rendered in a palette of vibrant oil paint. Fireflies, completed in 2010, depicts small house in the context of an overwhelmingly large night sky and vast field. The sky is teaming and magically lit up with floating orbs of light that are the fireflies. Consistent with most of her works, the composition is simple and concise, conveying a sense of the smallness and insignificance with the human interaction and the land. In other works such as Yucca, Dandelion and House, and Roses and Ranch, Pawlowicz picks one distinct feature of a landscape and enlarges it in size, putting it in the foreground of the canvas. The yucca plant becomes nearly twice the size of the house in Yucca, which gives the viewer a sense of the significance of those defining features of a landscape. Pawlowicz’s unique view of her environment makes for interesting and beautiful paintings.

   

    Elaine Pawlowicz Yucca  

    Elaine Pawlowicz  Dandelion and House

            In addition to the group of homes, Pawlowicz displays another series of square canvases that depict a variety of subjects. However, all of these paintings are composed of a spherical central form, and deal with ideas of healing. The works all hang at an equal distance from each other and are exactly the same size- seeing all of the surreal imagery in juxtaposition with the images of suburban homes is a delightful contrast. Anxiety Planet, for example, is a night sky with aligned planets, and a central, circular image of internal human organs arranged in an alien way. By depicting a brain, stomach, kidney, and blood vessels inside this spherical planet, Pawlowicz seems to be placing physical humanity in the context of an extraterrestrial setting. Throughout her work the color scheme creates a vibrant and sometimes unsettling experience for the viewer.

            Garsot’s works are displayed in the back gallery space.  A colorful, vibrant, and optimistic view on the universe is created by, incorporating mythical beings such as Pegasus, and places such as Atlantis. Strong themes about nature, particularly the power of the ocean, create a tie between all of these works. Garsot’s The Wisdom of Art, a smaller piece, depicts a woman as the central image, but her head has been replaced by an artists’ palette with paint brushes. In her arms she carries a large bouquet of flowers, and her graceful, elegant calves are adorned with wings, a reference to Hermes, the messenger god in classic mythology. The woman stands in a circular cut out from the ocean landscape, and is surrounded by mathematic, musical, and linguistic symbols. These are a tribute to the academia associated with the creation of beautiful works of art; this piece is complex and bright. Garsot’s use of a female body as the central figure seems to emphasize the divine power of femininity and creativity. His clear interest in ancient mythology, and specifically Greek landscape figures is shown in multiple of his other works, including Pegasus, which incorporates a ruin of a traditional classical style columnar building.

    Garot’s The Wisdom of Art

 Garsot’s The Arts Performer

           

            The female body and the arts are used together in The Arts Performer, completed in 1996. This work shows a female figure with a cello replacing her torso. The shifted perspective and geometric shapes of the work references cubism, and the dreamlike elements point to surrealist traditions. The head of the figure is replaced with an apple, and the bow of the cello is a rose. Garsot’s playful imagery is striking. Once again, he references classical Greek architecture with an Ionic order column peeking out from the left side of the canvas. Garsot draws upon a wide range of inspiration with his works, but they always come together with over-arching themes of effervescence, movement, and brilliant colors.

            The November exhibitions at ARC Gallery incorporate some of the most colorful and inspiring pieces that the gallery has displayed in recent times, which is particularly refreshing in the sometimes cold, bleakness of a midwestern autumn.  Each series has coherent and complex themes, and I would highly recommend stopping by the gallery to come explore all of these works!