Images
from Kastner (top), Janson, and Ellis
At first
glance, you might not think these three artists' works have that
much to do with one another. But with extended looking, a number
of commonalities emerge in this interesting exhibit.
Janet
Kastner's acrylic and mixed-media works on paper feature words which
blend in and out of the related imagery superimposed upon them.
For example, in the piece titled Vertigo, the term "vasovagal
syncope" is buried within and beneath a jellyfish image, tilted
onto its side. The term refers to a particular type of fainting,
which might make the person experiencing it feel kind of like, well,
a jellyfish.
The
collage and encaustic works of Brad Ellis' "Currents"
pieces refer, through art history, to the works of Pop artists such
as Jasper Johns, but incorporate an Abstract Expressionist element
through the use of overall nonreferential calligraphic brushstrokes.
These are superimposed on a series of stripes or concentric squares
that are alternately opaque and translucent, revealing collaged
text. The brushstrokes and the use of text via collage provide a
space for dialogue between Ellis' works and Kastner's, although
Kastner's works use the text for content whereas Ellis' use it simply
for texture. Ellis' use of the grid provides a common point of departure
for his work and Joseph Janson's.
Janson's
works are primarily grid-based, with small squares, individually
painted with biologically oriented images. In several cases, diagrammatic
lines visually connect these squares/images. Diagrammatic imagery
has been of interest to artists for some time now, and it's hard
to look at some of Janson's work without thinking of the diagrams
that interested now-deceased artist Mark Lombardi, although Janson's
work makes much heavier use of color and underlying imagery. In
Migration, for example, a map is superimposed on squares containing
such images as flower bulbs, a paper wasp's nest, bales of hay,
and so on. Between these squares, and relating to the blue map diagram
beneath, are drawn red arrow-lines pointing from position to position.
The little squares, as much as the superimposed lines, are painted
with delicacy and sensitivity. The colors in the artist's work provide
a connection point with Kastner's.
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