Catching up with last month’s Third Friday in Wilmington before I get to this month’s First Friday in Raleigh…Below are a few notes and images from current exhibition at ACME:
Karen Paden Crouch is able to coax her wrought metal medium to provide not just emotional life to her three-dimensional work but also compelling tactile and visual surface interest. Her work is lively and gives the impression that she greatly enjoys the basic act of working with her materials and simply putting things together. The freshness, simplicity and straightforwardness of her approach seems well equipped to deal with this particular subject matter as she has a keen interest in the “structure and movement of living things.”
MJ Cunningham’s collages and drawings are multimedia pieces utilizing encaustic, printmaking, and collage. In sticking with a black and white palette, Cunningham utilizes silhouettes and profiles as a vehicle to capture elusive, fleeting qualities of all things ornithological. I also found her markmaking and compositional sense regarding the surface and boundaries of her pictures equally satisfying.
Sandra Ilhy’s Bird in a Gilded Cage is a Surrealist take on the show’s theme. It is part dollhouse, part antique birdcage. Michelle Connolly’s Dream Time-Boy Kissing Bird is one of the most metaphorical images in the bunch. Inspired by an actual scene from an image she saw of a boy with a bird, she as rendered it in a raw and expressive manner, going so far as to imply a unification of the two subjects.
Leslie Pearson’s Wings is one of the most captivating works in the gallery. About 7′ wide, it is made of rawhide leather utilizing a wetform process, and embellished with acrylic paint. It is an arresting work- enhanced by display on its own wall which gives it a commanding presence in the show. It is also as visually stunning as it is technically proficient.
Bird by Bird is on view at ACME Art Studios, 711 N. 5th Avenue in Wilmington through April, 2010.
One Comment
Thank you for coming to our show at ACME!