Review: Young artists reveal edgy dimension

By Doug Norris/Arts & Living Editor

WAKEFIELD - "What is hip today, might become passe," sang Tower of Power, words that were never more relevant than in the realm of contemporary art, where today's trends are tomorrow's cliches.

So the final verdict on shows like "30 Under 30," the eclectic, edgy exhibition now on display at Hera Gallery, won't be written for a while. Until then, however, viewers should find plenty to engage their curiosity and provoke thought, as these young artists explore subjects of morbidity, suburbia and the overwhelming presence of pop culture in works that are varied and multidimensional.

A sense of the grotesque and the surreal pervades much of the work, which seems inspired by a lifetime of scary movies. Other work is more ethereal, acting like landscapes of the subconscious.

Images of darkness range from Joshua Butkiewicz' "Little Girl Blue" mixed-media scene to Jessica Brill's contemporary painting of a night street. The former presents an anti-Barbie doll collection of a girl figure, hanged, over a floor containing (mostly) eyeless female scalps and two cattle skulls, while Brill's oil on canvas "Traffic" shows the streetlights and headlights that define the modern landscape when the sun goes down.

The painting has a companion in Timothy Ohliger's oil on canvas "Light Pollution on College Hill," an image of slick darkness broken only by a flickering light line at the top of the Hospital Trust building in Providence and a stream of headlights. Not only does the available light fail to illuminate the predominant landscape, it manages to obscure the natural starlight that has guided and inspired us for centuries.

Skewered whimsy characterizes the work of Marni Shindelman, who presents e-prints "Ling Ling and Hsing Hsing," spoofing the voyeuristic obsession with copulating panda bears at the National Zoo, and "Winnie," featuring an odd toy bear figure enmeshed or netted for public scrutiny.

Paired nearby are amusing "Birdmen" by Ria Brodell. One installation of fake birds and tree branches juts out from a wall, revealing a flock of tiny, colorful birds with beaks, wings, feathers and men's heads, showing dark hair, long sideburns and bushy eyebrows. "Flock of the Birdmen #3," a colored pencil sketch, continues the man-bird evolution. One brightly colored bird is shown taking flight surrounded by several more sketched in black and white, like a page from an old Audubon guide.

Photography is the most popular medium on display. Millee Tibbs' large prints of the trash found in front of big houses creates a satirical trilogy that tweaks contemporary culture and the modern landscape. These scenes of human detritus and the marriage of home and garbage convey personality and humor, despite the lack of any people. Titled by a single element in each scene - "Futon," "Orange Shirt," "Push Mower" - the pictures tell a story of a throwaway culture and hint at a worn-out America.

Christian Harder's large-scale archival photograph "Galilee #1" is a stunning black-and-white abstract of shimmering lines in water, a field of inky blacks and vibrant silvers that captures an iconic South County image of sunlight reflecting off the bay.

The theme of altered landscapes and dreamlike states is prevalent throughout the exhibition, but two pieces stand out dramatically. One is the figure of a girl standing, arms down, dressed in a nightgown, as if sleepwalking. Her long, blonde hair covers both sides of her head, completely obscuring her face. It is a disturbing image, the innocent child on some kind of trance-like journey, as if possessed. Allusions to the little girl in "Poltergeist" or Linda Blair in "The Exorcist" come to mind as a representation of sweetness, positioned alone in gallery space, retains the hint of the sinister.

Titled "Anonymous" by the artist Daniel Langston, the girl appears as a contemporary archetype, a 21st-century companion to the likes of Frankenstein and Dracula, creatures of the imagination that reflect something about their times.

Equally exotic, but evoking entirely different feelings, is Ayumi Ishii's endlessly fascinating installation, "10 minutes (of exhalation)." Whether imagined as the captured residue of frozen breath on a winter day or a cosmic field of white asteroids, the installation of resin and monofilament draws the viewer into its dimension, in the way of waves crashing the shore or flames crackling in a bonfire.

Caught in the airy space, between slight breezes, the individual forms, massed together in scores of nearly colliding objects, seem to float. Viewed from any angle, even underneath, the pieces rotate in slow motion, creating a dazzling white dance, like an abstract waltz. The viewer is transfixed, entranced by the rhythmic movement and otherworldly atmosphere.

Iishi explains the title in her statement, explaining that she captured her own breath into the cavities of silicon molds that became these forms. The artist, then, quite literally breathed life into her work. The result takes our breath away.

Juror for "30 Under 30" was Jo-Ann Conklin, director of the David Winton Bell Gallery, List Art Center, Brown University. The show will run through Aug. 19. Hera Gallery is located at 327 Main St., Wakefield. Call 789-1488.

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