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Michael O'Sullivan |
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| Summer Show Standouts
That late-blooming summer perennial, the group exhibition of August, is in full flower all over town, with a number of gallery surveys devoted to celebrating the past, foretelling the future and taking the pulse of today. Just be aware that there are, as always, more than a few weeds among the flowers. Among the best on view is "Summer 2002" at Georgetown's G Fine Art, a cool show in more ways than one. The small number of pieces sparingly hung on G's smooth white and white-painted brick walls, include recent works by Astrid Colomar, Teresita Fernandez, Maggie Michael, James Nares, Kelley Walker and Peter Wegner, along with a surprisingly contemporary-looking 1969 striped canvas by late Washington Color School painter Howard Mehring. Works by Nares and Michael, who will be sharing a two-person exhibition this fall, are emblematic of what gallery owner Annie Gawlak calls the "reserve" manifested by much of this show. Cool without being cold, and with inordinate attention paid to their slick yet decadent surface textures, Michael's "Clone" series paintings (in which the artist attempts to create twin abstractions out of thickly puddled latex) are, in a sense, anti-Jackson-Pollocks. The regimen involved in their creation, which incorporates pouring paint and then tilting the canvas in a pre-rehearsed choreography, may not sound spontaneous, but the works are nevertheless sexy in a clean, unkinky way. Similarly, Nares' untitled oil-and-wax abstraction is all about planned gesture. Suggesting smoke - or a scarf flung by Isadora Duncan - the work on paper exudes an effortless beauty that belies the obvious behind-the-scenes editing that went into producing this single perfect flourish. |
"James Nares' beautiful,
seemingly effortless flourish |
