LORI TASCHLER continues to paint her haunting dead-pan, minimal interiors. She has grown as an artist, however. They are subtly different and more complicated than her earlier work. She carefully places shadows where there wouldn't necessarily be any in her simple and thoroughly thought-out compositions (somewhat reminiscent of Giorgio Morandi still-lifes) and she keeps coming up with evermore unexpected and pleasing color combinations, juxtaposing chalky pastel colors with muddy neutrals. The dogged absence of people in these paintings that seem to be portraits of a shower stall, a TV, an armoire makes you feel as though there's some mystery afoot. A long look at these paintings and the domestic structures for human use they depict are strangely anthropomorphized: one begins to read a set of toilet stalls as a couple, a row of dryers begins to seem like a family. JEANNE TREMEL's timely installation is a "Wall Garden" made of myriad wire stems of varied lengths with blossoms made of buttons and beads that "grow" directly out of the wall. The lighting is an integral part of the total effect because the shadows formed by the flowers are important. Also featured are her flat but textural 2-d assemblages. They are made of details of photos from crochet magazines, paint, gouache, ink, stitching, beads, jewelry, various tiny household and hardware objects (such as surface protectors, scouring pads) and office supplies (such as erasers, post-its) and are mounted on various things such as china plates, paper, stretched canvas or fabric. Because of her sure painterly touch, the end effect is formally breathtaking -- very pretty and dainty, totally flipped-out, because of her choices of and combinations of materials and, since they are made from human detritus, sociological. ANGELA WYMAN's gouaches from "The Belle Series" feature women in huge skirts and dresses in, at times rather unseemly, scenarios (Gloria Steinhem meets Mother Goose on LSD). In these deftly-executed, subject-driven works it is apparent that Wyman not only has a good imagination, she also has a sense of humor. While they incisively explore the politics of femininity, the political commentary never seems heavy-handed and it balances out the works' unabashed prettiness. Wyman says "I became a participant in the performance of gender. After years of looking at children's books, nursery rhymes and Noah's Ark animals (the females always had eyelashes and bows) I had learned the signifying marks of gender." |
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