Fence Select 19 at ACCR

Installation view of Fence Select 19 at the Arts Center of the Capital Region

Each year in the Capital Region two big shows provide an opportunity for local artists to expose their latest work and for art fans to see a broad range of what the regional scene has to offer. Those two shows are the Mohawk-Hudson Regional, which rotates venues, and The Fence Show, hosted annually by the Arts Center of the Capital Region (ACCR) in Troy. Each show serves these purposes in contrasting ways.

The current edition of Fence Select (a curated selection of 62 pieces pulled from the 400+ works submitted to the all-inclusive, salon-style Fence Show) has a quite a few of the same artists you might find in a typical Regional - but that's where the similarity begins to fade. Most notably, Fence lacks gravitas - it's casual. The artworks are arrayed in straight lines, but with little apparent relationship among them (see example in view shown above). It's possible that this quirky arrangement was done in homage to the Fence Show's origins - it began several decades ago with the artworks being hung from the spikes of an iron fence that surrounds Troy's Washington Park, where the ACCR was located at the time.

Jeff Wigman - Pug Chihuahua Mix, oil on paper (detail)

Also quirky: Several of the included artists (juried by Art Omi Curator Nicole Hayes) had two pieces chosen, but none of those pairs are hung together. Meanwhile, somewhat counter-intuitively, all but two of the prizes went to artists who had just one piece chosen (the exceptions being Runner-Up Jeff Wigman and Honorable Mention Catherine Austin).

On the plus side, those prizes were numerous and rich - a total of about $3,000 was awarded to 11 recipients, including a Student Best in Show and a Student Runner-Up, who received $100 each. That kind of encouragement to young (or, for that matter, established) artists is invaluable.

Then there's the numbering system. Rather than re-number the works after re-hanging them from the Salon installation, the ACCR has retained each piece's original submission number, making for a whacked-out game of seek and find when attempting to locate works by referring to the numerically ordered checklist. Additionally, at the time of my visit, the checklist was missing five of the selected pieces altogether, so I couldn't even identify those artists or their works' titles (hopefully, that's been rectified).

As is usual with a juried show, there are a few odd choices here, including several that are - forgive me - plain awful or, at best, pedestrian. It seems Hayes has curious taste. I'll leave it for you to decide which may be the weaker players, but let's just agree to accept the show as a bit underwhelming overall and move on to the highlights.

Lori Lawrence - In the Light, oil on canvas

Among my favorite pieces in this selection are non-prizewinners by artists I've known for a long time. Lori Lawrence, emerging from a prolonged hiatus, has two particularly strong paintings of natural scenes with gloriously unnatural coloration. Also glorying in unbridled color sense is a large painting on paper by Wendy Williams that, wisely, was given pride of place at the start of the exhibition. I also discovered a few new names worth keeping an eye out for, including Janet Barnett, whose delicate, pedestal-scale wood sculpture entitled Autumn Wind captures movement remarkably well; and Aindrea Richard, whose mystically complex and adroitly painted untitled gouache received an Honorable Mention from the juror.

Mary LaFleur - ceramic

Other prizewinners include Jamie Rodriguez (Best in Show), whose amusingly titled combination of painting and sculpture stretches boundaries of medium, expression, and - possibly - decorum (see image at bottom of this post); Catherine Austin, who makes drawings from old Polaroids (I think); and Mary LaFleur, who received a staff award for her expressive ceramic horse (shown at left).

The show has a fairly small selection of photographs (most of which, regrettably, are forgettable) but three stood out to me: Chris Demarco's study of a kudzu infestation; Theresa Swidorski's negative image of a forest; and Robert Coppola's color picture of a tiny house in Maine.

Fence Select will remain on view through July 7. Also on view in the ACCR's Foyer Gallery is a crowd-pleasing collection of works on paper by Mary Sherwood entitled Drawing on Experience, which will remain there through Sept 6. An artists' reception for both exhibitions will be held Friday, June 28, from 6-8 p.m as part of the monthly Troy Night Out events.

Also of interest in Troy is a retrospective exhibition of photographs by Eric Lindbloom, extended through June 30 at the PhotoCenter (example at right, above). Fans of traditional black-and-white photography will be thrilled by the craftsmanship and ethereal quality of Lindbloom's masterful work.

Jamie Rodriguez - It's unfortunate what happened to Peter Stuyvesant and his peg leg, mixed media (detail)

Welcome Scarlet Seven

An interior view of Scarlet Seven Fine Art Gallery

photo provided

Whenever a new gallery opens in the Capital Region, it is cause for celebration. But then comes the inevitable question - will it last?

Julie Branch - Large Fungi with Frogs
pilfered porcelain

A large and enthusiastic crowd greeted the opening of Scarlet Seven Fine Art Gallery at 137 4th Street in Troy on Friday night (during the ever-popular Troy Night Out), giving a strong impression that this space is desired and appreciated. Owners Jon Gernon and Jillian Platt presided over the event, which featured 12 regional artists of strong reputation and diverse work. After a ribbon-cutting ceremony to be held on May 31, the gallery will be open from 1 to 7 p.m. Wednesday through Friday, noon to 4 p.m. Saturday and noon to 3 p.m. on Sunday; the current show runs through June 25.

The space is grand and nicely proportioned, with plenty of exposed brick, wooden floor, and a solid glass front that puts the venue on permanent street-level display, tantalizing passersby with the challenge of finding the entrance, which is way around back and neatly hidden under a giant, blank wall of brick and ivy. This may be a clever approach - if you make it hard to find, people will be inspired to put in the effort. Feeling like you've discovered something special, perhaps you will buy.

David Austin - Getting Closer, acrylic on canvas

And, yes, the point of this business is to sell the art, however vulgar that may seem to purists. Certainly, let's hope that's the result, if we like local art and nice galleries to show it in. Gernon was until recently for many years the curator at nearby Clement Gallery, so his experience in retail will be especially useful here. He is also one of the featured artists, and has found a broad-based market for his own tempera paintings, which should help this gallery's fortunes.

Co-curator Platt also shows paintings in this first selection, which includes paintings by David Austin, John Hampshire, Willie Marlowe, D. Jack Solomon, Yeachin Tsai, Stephen Tyson, and Jeff Wigman; sculptures by Julie Branch and Susan Spencer Crowe; and ceramics by Randi Kish. If you're not already familiar with this star-filled lineup, then Scarlet Seven will be as good a place as any to catch up and join the folks who follow the local scene and for decades have been enjoying the world-class work it offers.

We'll be keeping an eye on this latest commercial fine art venture, and wish Jon and Jillian the very best for a long, successful run.

Jeff Wigman - The Three Poisons, oil on panel

38th Annual Photography Regional

A view of the 38th Annual Photography Regional at Fulton Street Gallery

At the age of 38, the Photography Regional has come full circle. Originally conceived as a counterpoint to the Mohawk-Hudson Regional, which did not accept photography until the early '90s, the Photo Regional has always been popular with professionals, artists, amateurs, professors, and students; and it has always made a splash with audiences, and in local media.

But has it evolved?

The current iteration of the show, at Fulton Street Gallery in Troy through April 2, looks and feels eerily like the earliest Photo Regionals - it was mounted this year first as an all-inclusive salon, and then as a juror selection (following the original format); it includes a significant number of the same names that participated in it way back then; the prints and images, though mainly produced with digital technology, look a lot like prints and images of the '70s; and it is in the same city as the first Photo Regional (which was hosted by the Rensselaer County Council on the Arts, now known as the Arts Center of the Capital Region).

Frank Rapant - After the Fire 4, archival inkjet

This year, juror Dan Burkholder chose 86 pictures by 70 or so artists from 265 initial submissions. Because the show was mounted in traditional fashion as a salon, with all entries on view, the entries had to be submitted in finished form (as opposed to digitally) and this year the deadline was unusually early (the show typically opens in the early spring). These factors no doubt had an impact on what was submitted - people had to be ready in a hurry - and probably caused more than a few regular participants to miss out.

That said, I think it's a good thing to require finished entries for two reasons:

1. It allows the judge to see and choose exactly what is being presented, likely avoiding unpleasant surprises from work that looked way better in a slide than in a frame
2. It somewhat limits the entrants to people who are regularly making and finishing work - as distinct from those who maybe only knock out a few pictures a year to submit to annual shows - possibly raising the bar a bit

I also like the salon idea - even if it's crowded and messy, the opportunity for the public to see everything that was submitted, perhaps making their own judgments about what's best, and then see a show selected by a professional, is always rich. The annual Fence Show, sponsored by the ACCR, also follows this format, and it's a treat.

Dan McCormick - Robbie 6-27-15
pinhole camera digital pigment print 

On the other hand, this year's judge was way too nice. He included a lot of work that shouldn't have made the cut, and was therefore unable to include a lot of multiple pictures (i.e. bodies of work) by the better individual artists. The result is a show that is double- or triple-hung and runs all over the place stylistically, with just 10 or so people having more than one piece on view. I've said it before: In art, democracy is not a good thing. Even the strongest work loses its potency when surrounded by too many other, lesser works.

While the Photo Regional is always going to be broad-based and inclusive, it also should present the region's photographers - whichever ones submit the best work each year - in a properly representative context. By that I mean it should result in a show that impresses the viewer with its quality, range, and depth. Those three adjectives succinctly and accurately describe the CApital Region's photography scene, and there's no reason the Photo Regional shouldn't emphatically reveal those strengths every year.

Laura Saffares - Which Door ... come and look

The best way to represent these qualities in a regional show is to be relentlessly selective, and then to give each of the best participating artists enough space to show a coherent body of work. That's what last year's Photo Regional judges did at the Opalka Gallery (see GV's review), and what I wish this year's judge also had done. Instead, despite a nearly heroic effort on the part of Fulton Street Director Ray Felix to install the show in his gallery's limited space, it looks amateurish.

But maybe this is what the Photo Regional ought to be. After all, things have changed tremendously in the world of photographic art, including in the Capital Region, since the first Photo Regional was mounted in 1979. Back then, it was a struggle for photography to be recognized as art; now, all the major museums collect and show it. And a great many of the best regional photographers, including a number who are part of this Regional, have shown and won top prizes in the Mohawk-Hudson Regional.

So, now that the best photographers have achieved full status in the regional and global world of art, why not leave the Photo Regional to the amateurs, the students, the up-and-comers? That's the spirit in which it was born, and may very well be its perfect future.

A view of the 38th Annual Photography Regional at Fulton Street Gallery

all photos in this post provided by Nicholas Argyros of the PhotoCenter

Note: Two other excellent photography shows are currently on view in Troy. The PhotoCenter of the Capital Region (which co-hosted the Photo Regional Salon) is presenting work from North Korea and Cuba by Branson Quenzer and Juan Suarez through April 3, with a Troy Night Out reception on March 25; and The Teaching Gallery at Hudson Valley Community College is presenting color work by Monika Sosnowski and Carlos Loret De Mola through March 19.

MoHu

Some day we will all be bragging that we were here for the first MoHu festival. Let's get out there and make it real!

Sketcher Recalls at ACCR and other Troy shows

The anagrammatic Union College stage designer Charles Steckler has revealed a hidden identity as an irrepressible doodler in a show at the Arts Center of the Capital Region titled Sketcher Recalls, which opened, along with several other shows of interest, at last Friday's Troy Night Out.

Steckler has been unusually active in the exhibitions arena in recent years, and is now widely known for his inventive and layered dioramas. This show brings out a related body of work that is both more subtle and more personal. Because the drawings are mostly on the scale and level of doodling, anyone could relate to them (after all, who among us doesn't take pen or pencil in hand and make sketches while on the phone or in a meeting?).

However, this is the doodling of a master doodler, and the drawings are enchanting. Most of them have an organic feel, featuring semi-recognizable plant forms or landscapes. Others are less concrete, emphasizing fantasy or pure mark-making. Though no color is employed, there is a notable breadth of media, including metallic inks, Wite-Out, various types of pens and pencils, and occasional embellishments in the form of abrasion, collage, or even added materials such as wire.

Altogether, what Steckler the Sketcher recalls is a lifetime of thoughtful, time-absorbing attention to detail, mood, and form. Four of the 20-plus drawings in this show were included in a recent exhibition at Union's Mandeville Gallery titled Of Weeds and Wildness, which was recently reviewed here. This solo show presents a nice opportunity to revisit those gems and see many more from the same deft hand. It hangs through April 22.

Not far from the Arts Center is the Clement Art Gallery, where a show titled { sub/urban } features the work of painters Ben Schwab and Scott Nelson Foster. Aptly paired, these two look at the built environment in distinct ways, using different techniques that move toward each other in a nicely balanced relationship.

Schwab, who teaches at The College of Saint Rose, works larger, more geometrically, and more colorfully than Foster (his show at Albany Center Gallery was reviewed here in 2009), though his most recent entries in this show represent a departure into smaller, sketchier works in pencil that he calls "postcards." These offer a welcome window into Schwab's process.

Foster is new to the area, having come last fall from Idaho by way of Utah to teach at Siena College. His small-scale, monochromatic watercolors evoke black-and-white photographs, though up close they are just as seductively loose and flowing as watercolors ought to be. The quasi-cool look he takes at subdivisions and big-box stores has an almost spiritual reverence for its subjects.

This is a nice local debut for Foster - I hope we'll see a lot more of his work around here in the years to come. The show remains on view through April 28.

Across the street from the Arts Center is a recently relocated shop called Artcentric, where Albany photographer Connie Frisbee Houde has mounted a solo show amid the clutter. I'm not opposed to alternative spaces, and this seems to be a bustling one, overseen by the keen eye of longtime photographer Debra Lockrow and featuring a range of local artists as well as tons of other crafty stuff.

Houde's show is a departure from her well-known Afghanistan subject matter (reviewed here in 2009), this time representing the more tranquil Caribbean setting of St. John. Though this particular venue doesn't demand a clearly honed style or consistent presentation, Houde's decision to include everything from landscapes to portraits to street scenes to nature details takes away from the overall impact of her vision. That's too bad, because her stuff is great (example shown at right above).

More photography can be seen in a two-person show at the Photography Center of the Capital District by Eric Lindbloom and Joseph Schuyler titled Truro Light. As expected, the pictures are from Cape Cod, but most of them are not your everyday beach scenes, and some are purely transcendent.

Lindbloom, who hails from Poughkeepsie and also shows in New York City, works in medium-format black and white - yes, he still shoots film and makes prints in a darkroom - and his very sensitively seen images are gorgeous. Some of the work is presented in series, such as one group of wonderfully wave-tossed sea grass, and another of selectively focused woodsy details with more than a little hint of magic.

Schuyler offers digitally-based color prints here - most are elegantly composed, some quite dramatic, while others have an Oriental lyricism. The digital color is distractingly blocked up in some of Schuyler's prints, but in others they remain quite subtle. His take on the Cape is more about the place than Lindbloom's (whose images could be from almost any climatically similar place); Schuyler's best work puts you right there in the elements, where you feel the wind, sand, and salt. The show continues through March 25.

Troy Night Out

OK, the weather has put a crimp in my ambitious plan for today to go see several shows in Troy and report on them in time for tonight's Troy Night Out. Instead, a short plug for two of the venues involved:

John Connors, one of my favorite local artists, has a solo of his lyrical Trojan watercolor drawings at Clement Art Gallery (example shown above). This is a show certain to bring joy to all who view it, and John is fun at a party, so go tonight if you can. Click if you want to see my 2009 review of his last solo show at Clement.

Also well worth checking out are two exhibitions at the Arts Center of the Capital Region, both of which opened last month; Vignette, curated by Nadine Wasserman, runs through March 20, and I expect to post a review of it here before then - but Andrea Hersh's Flora & Fauna (example shown below) ends Saturday, so see it now or forever wonder what you missed.

Enjoy the snow!

Channing Lefebvre at Clement Gallery

The artist Channing Lefebvre has assembled an exquisite collection of minimally altered ephemera appropriately presented under the title Appreciations: Fine Printed and Handmade Paper Collages, which I saw at Clement Art Gallery during last week's Troy Night Out.

Lefebvre's process is not unlike that of a curator, or perhaps even a photographer, whose intention is to direct our attention to the delights they have discovered, as opposed to the attention-getting tricks of an artist whose primary goal is self-expression. A printer by trade, he draws from a vast personal collection of printed material, ranging from antique lithographed catalog pages to contemporary hand-marbled Florentine paper, which he carefully arranges in very simple rectangular collages.

The show contains about two dozen of these, matted and clip-framed, all the same small size (maybe 5 by 8 inches each), and arranged around one much larger framed piece. Many more of the small ones are available to peruse by flipping through them in a display bin.

Lefebvre has always had a light touch in most of his work, which over the decades has included simplified landscapes, color-field paintings, more elaborate collages, fetishistic three-dimensional objects, calligraphic abstractions, and – most recently – systematically hatched abstract drawings. But this body of work shows the lightest touch of all, with many of the pieces combining as few as two elements in simple overlays. These “appreciations” could also be called observations – he has seen what happens when two or more shapes or patterns are combined, and is sharing that with us.

The centerpiece of the show, however, goes far beyond this approach, to produce what could arguably be called a full-fledged work of original expression, though it, too, is comprised entirely of cut-and-pasted swatches of other people’s designs. The chaotic collision of colors and patterns that occurs in that piece transcends anything the source prints’ creators likely would have envisioned. I found the effect totally gratifying (its hallucinatory quality is reflected in the far simpler piece reproduced at the top of this post).

Lefebvre had a large collection of drawings in a group show at Albany Center Gallery two years ago (you can read my very short review of it here), but he hasn't had a solo exhibition locally in quite a bit longer than that. This subtle presentation will not be for everybody, especially those who demand that their artists demonstrate specialized or arduous techniques, but it will grow on those who give it a proper chance (it's there through Feb. 24).

Rating: Recommended

Battlesight at the ACCR

It's as though the International Center of Photography opened a branch in Troy. The exhibition Battlesight: Dispatches from Iraq and Afghanistan by International Photographers is that good, and that important.

Curated by Timothy Cahill, director of the Center for Documentary Arts at The Sage Colleges, and hosted by the Arts Center of the Capital Region in Troy, Battlesight presents the work of three very diverse photographers who share a common subject: War. Cahill introduces the show by explaining that we live in a time in which there are few mass-media outlets for such images, as opposed to the Vietnam era, when the war was brought into everyone's living room by magazines such as Look and Life and by the evening news on TV.

His point is that we are disturbingly unconnected today to the devastation being wrought in our names with trillions of our dollars, and that this represents a culture out of balance. Aside from the obvious question of whether the work of these (or any) photographers being shown in an art gallery (or anywhere else) can change that balance, one must acknowledge that our time is nowhere near as innocent as the '60s started out, and that people these days are more and more difficult to reach - that is, to move emotionally - with pictures (or anything else).

But it's certainly worth trying. And these three - if nothing else - represent a deep commitment to doing that without fear, year after year. Cheryl Diaz Meyer, Balasz Gardi, and Teru Kuwayama are excellent photographers and have each won many well-deserved awards. By bringing them together, Cahill has created a different context for their work than you would find in a book or magazine - and that is part of the reason this show matters.

Rather than comment on the content of the work, which most viewers will have no trouble understanding and interpreting on their own (and which is evident in the examples shown with this post), I'd like to point out some of the less obvious aspects of the exhibition and its trio of participants.

First, there are three distinct sensibilities at play here. Diaz Meyer, who won a Pulitzer Prize while working for The Dallas Morning News, is the traditional "objective" reporter, taking relatively uninflected pictures and putting them together to tell a journalistic story. Gardi, a Hungarian freelancer, comes from the grand European tradition of humanistic photography made popular by the Magnum agency; his work is clearly meant to be allegorical. Kuwayama, a graduate of the University at Albany, uses equipment and techniques more generally associated with artistic photography, and fulfills that promise by offering works that lean toward self-expression.

The statements made by each photographer support these distinctions. Diaz Meyer's emphasizes courage (a totally straight-ahead American take on reporters and soldiers doing their duty); Gardi's emphasizes the desperation of his marginalized subjects (who are presented as deeply - and universally - human); and Kuwayama's emphasizes his own various journeys, projects, and ongoing exploration (essentially casting him as the traveling seeker of meaning).

Cahill, as curator, is the fourth wheel - his selection, choice of print size and framing design, and overall installation of the exhibition add up to a uniquely orchestrated experience of this particular set of sensibilities. It is (I believe) his first attempt at organizing such an exhibit and, while not perfect, it is quite a successful effort. The viewer is taken on a ride into difficult territory and emerges at the end still whole yet subtly, perhaps imperceptibly - but definitely - changed.

Rating: Highly Recommended

Battlesight: Dispatches from Iraq and Afghanistan by International Photographers is on view through Dec. 19. There will be a second reception for the show during this Friday's (Nov. 26) Troy Night Out from 5 - 9 p.m.

Caption information, in order from top of post:

Balazs Gardi - An Afghan man holds a wounded boy in front of a house in Yaka China village, Korengal Valley, Kunar Province, East Afghanistan, October 20, 2007. The boy received several shrapnel wounds from a rocket as a U.S. air strike targeted a suspected insurgent position in a nearby house the previous night. The air strike killed five other civilians and injured at least seven villagers including children.

Teru Kuwayama - An ethnic Kyrgyz horseman, carrying an Afghan flag, patrols the Afghan border with Tajikistan. Wakhan Corridor, Afghanistan 2005

Teru Kuwayama - The ruins of Kabul. Following the retreat of the Soviet Army, internecine fighting between rival mujahideen factions leveled the city and displaced millions. 2002

Cheryl Diaz Meyer - Mini Bus - Corpses of children lay in a pool of blood in a minibus at an intersection near Hatif Haiyawi, an area loyal to Saddam Hussein, during the Second Tank Battalion's advance on the outskirts of Baghdad. Controlling civilian movement left numerous deaths as Marines responded to suicide bombers, soldiers posing as civilians and other ambush tactics. April 5, 2003

Balazs Gardi - U.S. soldier collapses in exhaustion during Operation Rock Avalanche, Korengal Valley, Kunar Province, East Afghanistan, October 25, 2007.

Cheryl Diaz Meyer - Dust Storm - Marine Staff Sergeant Brian Flaherty of New York, Delta Company of the Second Tank Battalion, disconnects a fuel bladder from a tank as a dust storm rages in Southern Iraq. The move north toward Baghdad was one of the most aggressive tank road marches in Marine history. March 25, 2003.

Also of note: Two other important exhibitions of photography are on view in Troy, and both will be part of the Troy Night Out festivities: Autobiography, featuring the work of Nicholas Walster and Susan Bartoldus, has been extended by the Photography Center of the Capital District through the weekend; and Iceland Landscapes by Michael Marston will have its artist's reception on Friday at Fulton Street Gallery (it runs through Dec. 4). I recommend both.

Troy Night Out (April edition)

It's a particularly potent Troy Night Out this month, as the reception for the 32nd Photography Regional will be held by Fulton Street Gallery in the Uncle Sam Atrium, and at least two other important shows are also being celebrated. Events run from 5 p.m to 9 p.m. on Friday, April 30, and it's all a short stroll apart.

D. Jack Solomon, painter extraordinaire, will have a solo show of his recent small work at Clement Art Gallery (example at right). Solomon combines painting and collage techniques to produce witty little gems that are sure to delight all who see them.

And speaking of little gems, there's Dorothy Englander's showcase in the Arts Center of the Capital Region's Foyer Gallery, titled Microlife and Milagros. I'm biased - Dot is my studio-mate - but you know I have good taste, and these are truly tasty (example below at left).

Coincidentally, another close friend of mine is showcased in the Arts Center's main gallery - that's Andrzej Pilarczyk, of Nippertown.com fame, whose exuberant musical performance photos from the Sanctuary for Independent Media have been hanging there for several weeks. Performance videos (which are not Pilarczyck's work) are also featured in the installation.

But the Photo Regional gets top billing, and there will be a talk by juror Carrie Haddad at 6:30, so it's sure to draw a crowd. I saw the salon version of the show, and am looking forward to seeing just how close to my own picks Carrie may have come. To learn more about the show, and see all the works in it online, you can click here.

As I said, TNO is eminently walkable, the weather is supposed to be really nice, and there's more to see than you can reasonably expect to cover in four hours. So I hope you'll join me there and support the artists and all the venues in beautiful downtown Troy.

Flosdorf and Swidorski at Fulton Street Gallery

Two photographers who've been quite active on the local scene in recent years are presented in side-by-side solo shows at Fulton Street Gallery in Troy, with a reception on Friday (Jan. 29) that coincides with the always fun and eclectic Troy Night Out.

The three-room installation of 15 pictures each by Jim Flosdorf and Theresa Swidorski offers an opportunity to see each artist's work in depth (often impossible in the more common group shows) and to compare and contrast them as well. While Flosdorf's show is billed as a retrospective, touching on about ten years of output in digital color, Swidorski's is made up of two recent groups of images in traditional black and white.

The gallery's ample front room provides plenty of space in which Flosdorf's large, rather brightly colored work can breathe; the flat-mounted, minimally framed (or unframed) pieces use it well. Visually, and in terms of process, they are an amalgam of classic photography technique and painterly yearnings; some highly graphic, others richly detailed, they can be successfully viewed from a distance or up close.

The newest image in the show (2010's Ore Crusher, shown above), is a crystal-clear example of what makes Flosdorf tick: it uses oversaturated color, gritty texture, romanticism, and playfulness to quickly engage the viewer and then keep the relationship going for a while.

Many of Flosdorf's other works (in this show or not) are much more complex than Ore Crusher, but they do not necessarily exceed it. One I particularly like, titled Grassy Inlet, plays a similar game of seek-and-find, while offering a much bigger world view, and more adventure.

Two other recent images in this selection were part of the 2009 Artists of the Mohawk-Hudson Region exhibition at Albany's University Art Museum, and were taken at the massive Sol Lewitt installation at MASS MoCA (one is shown above). These typify Flosdorf's more graphic approach, where color and shape are the dominant features, rather than intimate detail.

Other works in the show that hew in this direction were made inside a heavily graffitoed and trashed set of train cars. Unlike many of Flosdorf's photographs that are often highly manipulated in PhotoShop, these appear to be straight images. Another train image shows a moving engine that appears to be floating out of a pink haze like an apparition or a dream - it is perhaps the most like a painting of the photos in this selection.

Speaking of selection, one note on curatorial choice: While it is valid to do a retrospective show of an artist with ten years' worth of work to choose from (and I know from past viewing that Flosdorf has plenty of depth in the work made in that span), by taking many small slices of that work you run the risk of creating a show with a "best of" feeling, rather than an experience of the artist at his best.

I think it would have served Flosdorf (and the audience) better to have presented larger slices of a smaller range of images, thereby communicating the consistency and coherence of this artist's vision in a more complete way.

This, in effect, is what is accomplished in the smaller-scale, two part show of Swidorski's photographs from Italy and Ireland. A group comprised of eight pictures, all of them vertical 11x14's taken in Venice and Vicenza (one is shown at left), fits snugly along an upstairs balcony in the back of the gallery.

The carefully modulated tones of wet-processed silver printing take this work well out of the realm of the tourist snapshot, as does Swidorski's receptive, deceptively quiet eye for a meaningful scene. She often shoots in the soft light of early morning, relishing the surfaces and forms of her classic subjects.

This is not your sun-drenched Italy, but it definitely is Italy - presented from a certain point of view, but as and for itself. In a more personal category are the seven pictures Swidorski shows from Ireland in the gallery's back room (one is shown below).

These are printed larger than the Italy images, but also much more expressively - while some retain the sharpness and range of tones we associate with traditionally well-made black-and-white prints, others are dark and brooding, using great swaths of swirling graininess to capture and render atmosphere. This is where I think Swidorski starts to accomplish something special. While it is hinted at in the Italy pictures, the Irish weather allows Swidorski's emotional side to come out and play.

One favorite (not shown here), titled The Amazing Cloud at Inch, presents a rural landscape, its elements dwarfed by a looming, black stormcloud. A similar effect is created in another image titled Lost in Donegal. Swidorski can be comfortable resting her reputation on the strength of these two pictures alone.

If you want to go out and play, Troy Night Out will have many other shows also worth a look: painter Harry Orlyk at Clement Gallery; a group show at Martinez Gallery that includes many regional favorites (Flosdorf among them); Dan McCormack at the PhotoCenter; two new shows and an Ellen Sinopoli open dance rehearsal at the Arts Center; and much more.

It’s only the river …

The Hudson River has been a wellspring of artistic inspiration for centuries, and for one very good reason: the light. Anthony Thompson paints that light, and the river, with exceeding skill and concentration, as evidenced by his semi-retrospective solo show, which runs through Sept. 8 at Martinez Gallery in Troy. Though the gallery has limited hours (see below), tonight's Troy Night Out affords a long evening's opportunity to go have a look.

Thompson has been at it for quite some time. Based in Hudson, his professional credentials stretch back to 1964, when he began a teaching career that included long stints at Parsons School of Design in New York City and as head of the fine arts department at Columbia-Greene Community College. This exhibition features 14 paintings from 1999 to 2008; the earliest, titled Hudson Light VII, lives up to its name, as it is bathed in the golden glow of a classic mixed-cloud sky that filters the setting sun over a tiny, lonely Bannerman's Castle (see image at top of post).

Thompson revisits this scene in an equally stunning 2007 painting titled Middle Island that captures a cooler palette, perhaps at dawn (see image near bottom of post). While these and other traditional images make up the bulk of the show, there is a challenging edge lurking at its periphery. Thompson is not primarily a colorist, and he works dark forms into his sometimes extremely assymetrical compositions, using silhouetting to emphasize the light as it glints from sky to water.

A strong example of this process is presented twice in the show - as a "study" (placed in quotes, because it is a fully realized painting) and larger final version of Olana Sunburst (shown at right). This is a rather disquieting image, as tempestuous as a Turner, which seems representative of the dual nature of human spirituality.

Two other pieces in the show confront duality as a more optical game, copying and flipping similar images to create a Rorschach effect. One of these cognitive experiments (in addition to an MFA from Cornell, the artist boasts an MA in cognitive psychology from the New School) incorporates two snapshot-sized color photos of a painting, then adds pooled acrylic blobs on top of them; the other is a highly detailed painting of a pond, 5 by 6½ feet. Though they are oddities among the rest of the work here, they do open a window on Thompson's processes, both visual and mental.

Martinez Gallery's hours are Thursday-Sunday, 2:00 to 4:30 p.m., and by appointment. It would be nice if they were more expansive, but the fact that this commercial gallery has survived in the Capital Region since 2001, which is something of a record, shows they are doing many things right. Go see for yourself what it's about.

And, while you're at it, check out another Hudson River show that opens tonight (Friday, Aug. 28) and runs through Sept. 23 at Clement Art Gallery, which is just a few steps from Martinez. The show, titled Down by the River, presents a large body of black-and-white photographs by John Whipple that are part of a long-term project looking at many aspects of the river and its inhabitants. I recommend it.

Two regionals: Selection vs. inclusion

There are two major regional exhibitions having their opening receptions this week and, while they have many similarities (and include some of the same artists), they also couldn't be more different.

The Fence Show (its reception, part of Troy Night Out, is on Friday from 5 to 9) is an annual staple of the Arts Center of the Capital Region http://www.artscenteronline.org/ that began more than 40 years ago (when the organization was known as the RCCA and actually had a fence), and is the most democratic of affairs. Quite simply, all paid-up members of the organization are invited to deliver up to three works, and everything that comes in is hung salon-style in the Center's capacious gallery for all the world to see. Later, a juried portion is rehung as Fence Select, and a few prizes are awarded; the choices typically are made by a locally-based juror. This year's juror, Sarah Cunningham of The College of New Jersey, has a strong local connection: she ran Albany Center Gallery for a number of years, guiding its move into the Albany Public Library's main branch.

The Mohawk-Hudson Regional (this year's venue is Albany's University Art Museum http://www.albany.edu/museum/calendar.html and the reception is this evening - Thursday - from 5 to 8) first ran in 1936, and is traditionally considered the high-water mark in our annual pantheon of juried shows, with big cash prizes, purchase awards, and a glossy catalog. This year's juror, Matthew Higgs of White Columns Gallery in New York City, has the art-world profile of the typical Regional juror - the better to attract a lot of good entries and form a prestigious exhibition.

I have entered both shows a number of times over the years, with pretty good success at each - so I don't claim to be objective, but I can claim balance. This year, my work was rejected from the Regional, which gave me greater impetus to enter the Fence Show, where I know at least it will be seen before it gets too stale. (In a related situation, this year's Photography Regional was by invitation only, so I couldn't enter that, as I usually do.)

So, which is better - inclusion or selection?

As an artist, I have great arguments for both. It's nice to have work included, even if there are no criteria to overcome (as in the Fence), because you want the work to be seen. Even without criteria, you feel good to be included, and that gives the Fence Show its obvious appeal. Everybody gets to show, everybody gets to feel good. But, with no standards, what's to feel good about?

It's also nice to have work selected by a juror, both for the prestige value and to be in a better-looking show. But when there are selections, the stakes are higher. No one likes to be rejected, even though running that risk is a fact of life. Still, I'd bet that every artist involved in any juried show, no matter how terrific and successful they may already be, agonizes over the decision of the judge the same as if it were a high-school popularity contest. Is it worth it?

I also have some arguments as an audience member (because these are public shows, after all, and the point is for people to go see them).

The all-inclusive show can be a bit messy, but it affords the opportunity to see everything that was submitted without the filter of some snooty judge. I often agree with a judge's choices, but I also gain by seeing the work that would have been rejected. In a mature scene such as this one, there is so much good work being produced that there are always very good works of art that don't make the cut - that's why salons des refusés are often of high quality. So it's better to show it all and let the audience make their own selections.

Then again, the selected show, if it's done right, guarantees a very high-quality experience for the viewer. You achieve the illusion of seeing only the best of the best, and you feel edified, even enlightened. The cleaner installation is almost always an improvement, but it is in the quality of the installation, where a juror has made choices that work together, that you get the biggest advantage - a sum-of-its-parts gain. So juried shows are better.

And what about those jurors? I have observed a pattern in the many Mohawk-Hudson Regionals I've seen, in which the feel of the show varies a lot from year to year but has some consistency at each venue - more minimalist at the University, more populist at the Institute - and that's entirely due to each site's tendencies in choice of juror. Is that a fair representation of the art of our region?

As for the Fence, it's a salon and it's juried - the best (or worst) of both worlds.

How do you see it?

P.S. Insights into both juror's processes can be had by the following: See the Fence Show, and note the pieces with a green dot - those were chosen by the juror for Fence Select; and, go to this link http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=813473&category=ARTS&BCCode=&newsdate=6/25/2009 to read an interview with Matthew Higgs by Times Union intern Bethany Bump.

Trojan trilogy

A lot of shows and spaces were celebrated at last Friday's Troy Night Out, including one up the hill at Emma Willard School's Dietel Gallery http://www.emma.troy.ny.us/arts/dietel_gallery.php.

That show features a trio of Sage College of Albany art faculty in an exhibition inspired by sojourns. Also a strong draw were downtown shows by John Hampshire at Clement Art Gallery http://clementart.com/ and Gail Nadeau and Katherine Wright together at Fulton Street Gallery http://fsgtroy.org/html/index.php.

Sojourns to Ireland and Italy: Marlowe, Martin and Morrell (images shown above) takes full advantage of the long, narrow Dietel space to present three artists working from the same inspirational source (sojourn vi. to live somewhere temporarily), but in diverse media. Gallery director Susan Hoffer deserves a mention for the skillful way she intermingles the show's 30 works (10 by each artist), creating a comfortable flow and interesting interactions for the viewer.

Willie Marlowe (recently retired) makes small-format, abstract, acrylic paintings in day-glo colors that are almost scientific in their forms and atmospherics. I have followed her career for a long time, and always marvel at how she remains consistent but fresh. Changes occur, usually gradually; in this show there is evidence of a slight shift toward representation.

A trio of works that hold the center of the exhibition, and form a neat group on their own as they jump from red to green to purple, include two that directly reference being underwater in their titles, while showing what that may look like: Beneath Murano and Murano Aqua Alta (Murano is an island in the Venice lagoon). Another painting nearby, Adriatic Low Tide, with its streaks of green showing through scraped black paint, is similarly literally titled. Still others reference art glass. It will be interesting to see what comes next from Marlowe.

Tim Martin is an accomplished ceramic sculptor who has created modest monuments to the rock formations he saw in the cliffs of Ireland. Martin cites architecture as another source, referring in a statement to the works as "geoarchitectural fragments." His titles are most evocative of places - The Great Skellig, Dromberg Dolman, Bolus Head and so on - but I also see human figures in some of them, particularly the latter, with its black glaze and tapered shape.

Martin's work has evolved from tightly geometric forms to a freer-flowing style, and his glazes in these pieces are rich in earth tones, with surface textures that vary from flat to glossy. Chunky, and with cracks prominent, they reflect a mellowing of the artist and his techniques.

Linda Morrell applies masterful digital photography skills to make naturalistic images of townscapes and other scenes in Italy, successfully avoiding the pitfall of manipulation but not steering entirely clear of cliché. One example: Gondolas photographed in Venice.

But the majority of Morrell's images are well-seen and unsentimental, emphasizing light, shadow, texture, and color (usually in that order). One, titled Levando gli Occhi (Looking Up), transforms its subject, a simple courtyard, into a study in three-dimensional space. Another, Carole's Window, is irresistibly romantic, yet crystal clear.

Morrell also presents three pieces that involve encaustic (wax) on boards - though photo-derived, they look more like frescoes. Not among my favorites, they are very popular with the gallerygoers I've heard commenting on them at Dietel and elsewhere.

The two-person show titled La Femme that features Gail Nadeau and Katherine Wright at Fulton Street Gallery is another tour de force of photographic technique, but quite unlike Morrell's work. Here we have women from diverse generations (Nadeau is a grandmother, Wright is just 23) who have approached the subject of woman from different perspectives and with different styles and methods.

But they come together in multiple ways, first of all because both are very much about process. Nadeau (her Two Dolls is shown at left) has been known to paint on pictures or slides, then reprint them and maybe do it again, creating layers of meaning and a strong push-pull between photographic "reality" and the one she creates. In her works shown at Fulton Street, there's also digital reversal going on - in the end, it's impossible to tell where the photograph ends and the painting begins.

Wright, meanwhile, is all about the control in the studio (her Sides of Myself is shown at right) - her pictures are highly manipulated and constructed before they are put on film, where they remain untouched by digital processing. Instead, she creates the image through the choice of model, costumes, makeup, lighting, and sometimes multiple exposure.

The second obvious connection between Nadeau and Wright is that they move in and out of viewing or expressing their subjects from within and without. We get a woman's point of view about women - in Nadeau's case, often through generations of relationships and in Wright's case as myth and muse. Both are not shy about sexuality, though it's presented obliquely.

As a male, I won't try to interpret too much of the content - but I can assert that it's a fascinating show, impressive in both its quantity and quality.

Equally fascinating is John Hampshire's collection of drawings at Clement titled More Than Just Lines. My objectivity about Hampshire could be influenced by our friendship, in addition to the fact that he has included a portrait of me in the show (in which I look about 100 years old), so keep that in mind. Further, he has chosen to use a long quotation from a review I wrote of his work before we met as publicity for the show, so you may want to be even more skeptical.

Still, I have to say that there is strong work to be seen here, including some earlier work that provides interesting perspective on the new stuff, and things not seen before in public that are not new but exciting nevertheless. Most notable are the pieces that represent Hampshire's entry into landscape imagery - or weatherscapes, if you will.

Labyrinth 220 (most of Hampshire's titles refer to his technique of drawing with elaborate snakes of lines - labyrinths - that appear abstract up close but congeal into representational renderings from a distance) is his best yet: a black thunderhead hovering above a landscape, swirls of lines forming a topographic effect (or an eye-of-the-storm one), darkness building. Executed in Sharpie pen on a prepared surface that is very much like a white dry-erase board, this and the other drawings in the show reveal why I say Hampshire is one to watch.

(Installation shot of John Hampshire's Labyrinth 220 at Clement Art gallery in Troy)

Troy Night Out (February edition) and ARiThmetic at ACG

Here comes another Troy Night Out, the gallery walkabout that takes place on the last Friday of each month, and it looks like it's going to be a good one.

At the top of my radar is a new show at Clement Art Gallery, where Jon Gernon is the able curator. Titled On The Surface: Drawings, the show features eight artists, of whom several are familiar to me and several are new names. Among the familiar, there's Sergio Sericolo, who won the prestigious NYFA fellowship a couple of years ago and whose work is sophisticated and complex. Charles Steckler does stage design at Union College and is a gloriously mad noodler with pen and paper. Gina Occhiogrosso's work is on the serious side, sometimes feminist, but with a light touch. Gernon himself is in the show, most likely with neo-Dutch still lifes. The others are Leslie Anderson, Joy Taylor, Carol O'Neill and Banjie Getsinger Nicholas.

Another show I won't want to miss is at Dusk Antiques, where John J. Hanson Jr. has been putting together tastefully chosen shows for a year or two, and this time is presenting Amrose Sable Gallery director Elizabeth Dubben's paintings. The twenty-something Dubben is also the curator of this year's Photo Regional invitational, which opens next week at Sage College of Albany's Opalka Gallery, so she's getting her share of exposure. No doubt folks will want to see what the curator paints, and I am sure they won't be disappointed.

Other venues that have shows opening include Fulton Street Gallery (where possibly conflicting information leaves me uncertain what will be there, but it may be a two-person show by creative photographers Katy Wright and Gail Nadeau); and the Flavour Cafe, which is featuring a show titled Journey through the donut garden by Benj Gleeksman. This last I think is worth a try on the basis of the title alone - I know nothing about the artist or the venue - but don't say I didn't warn you if it turns out to be cheesy. Could be great - I've no idea.

Major galleries with existing shows that will also be open for the evening from 5-9 are the Arts Center of the Capital Region (see my review of Mutatis Mutandis several postings ago); the PhotoCenter, where Best of 2008 continues (and I have two pieces there); Martinez Gallery, which celebrates three outstanding Capital Region artists - Caren Canier, Willie Marlowe and Leigh Wen - who show internationally; and Terra Nova gallery, where some pretty involved fabric collages by Francelise Dawkins are on view, along with photos by Jeff Sotek.

Switching from Troy: Not to be missed is another fine show at Albany Center Gallery, which began on Feb. 17 and will have its reception on March 6 in conjunction with 1st Friday. Titled ARiThmetic, the show includes the work of four artists, William Bergman, Benigna Chilla, Maria Hall and Nat Friedman, at least one of whom is a mathematician. There are drawings, prints, and sculptures in the exhibition, and they deal with complex mathematical processes while, to a non-mathematician, they appear to be wonderfully elegant and resolved works of art.

Chilla showed more than once at the gallery in the good old days of Les Urbach, and this big helping of her new work reprises a recognizable theme from long ago: patterns generated by overlapping screens or grids. These works evoke Sol Lewitt before he added color, and they sing beautifully. Friedman is the math guy, and his prints and stone sculptures have real soul, evoked in textures and form. Hall makes geometric pieces in metal, which can be decorative but are also very bold. Bergman, he of the infernal-machines, offers new works that are far more pure (a pair are pictured above, at right), as well as one of the calculus-derived wood constructions he's known for.

Altogether the show is strong medicine, the theme of which makes you wonder just how much you're missing when you look at and enjoy art but take all the thought and research behind it for granted. Kudos to ACG Director Sarah Martinez on guiding this exhibition into existence.