Brilliance in the Lost Moment of Hesitation,” Ali Cavanaugh’s show at
L Ross Gallery, explores the courage and wisdom of Milly Naeger, a
teenager battling cancer. In the artist’s statement for her show,
Cavanaugh congratulates Milly on “a battle well fought.” At the time of
the photo shoots, on which Cavanaugh’s current body of work is based,
Milly did not know what the outcome of her treatment would be.
In Interior Light, one of the show’s most memorable works,
Milly’s arms are outstretched, her palms up and open. The striking
coral-and-teal diamond pattern of the teenager’s arm warmers brings to
mind the leggings worn by jesters at Renaissance fairs. Milly’s
movements, however, are neither antic like that of a Harlequin nor
frenzied like the jig of a memento mori designed to strike fear in the
souls of mortals. The slow, undulating movements of Milly’s wrist and
arms are similar to those flexible graces of the mudra dancers of
India.
Cavanaugh’s 50 or so layers of nearly transparent washes create
colors so luminous that Milly looks lit from the inside as well as
bathed in the pure light suggested by the stark-white plaster panel on
which Cavanaugh paints. Eyes closed and head bent to the side, Milly
appears to be listening, aware of the feelings and physical sensations
moving through her, experiencing each moment as fully as she can. In
spite of the knowledge that her body may fail her and that sooner or
later death claims all of us, Milly dances with gratitude and
grace.
This is a must-see show — not only because Cavanaugh is one of
the few accomplished fresco painters working in the U.S. today or
because she has mastered body language and light, but because
Cavanaugh’s themes are universal. In this pantomime, one of the
bravest, most honest statements regarding the human condition, Milly
dances for us all.
Through June 30th
The genius of
Wayne Edge’s best works lies in this sculptor’s ability to suggest the
whole cosmos in one piece but still keep his composition open and
elegant.
Empty space lies at the center of Sunrise on Glass Butte, the
largest, most supercharged work in Edge’s David Lusk exhibition,
“Gazing at Distant Mountains.”
Tiny pieces of quartz attached to a jumble of dark-brown, nearly
black sticks of wenge wood, pointing in all directions, could be a
shower of shooting stars or the first glints of sunrise. This evocative
work suggests kinetic and quantum as well as galactic energy. Sticks of
wenge at the bottom, tipped with bits of translucent, smoky-gray
volcanic glass, remind us that energy roils not only throughout the
cosmos but also inside earth’s molten core.
Large, slightly contoured pieces of wenge trace what looks like the
international flight pattern of an airline. Bottom left, a larger,
tautly arched bow feels like the bowl of heaven enfolding earth and
starlight into the palpable blanket of night.
Keep studying this remarkable work and you’ll see the last glints of
light in the universe sucked into the gaping mouth of a black hole and
the fast-frame action of two samurai warriors engaging in the swordplay
of kendo, another art form that Edge has mastered.
Through July
3rd
One of the most moving paintings in “Caballo de Silueta,” Mary Cour
Burrows’ Perry Nicole Fine Arts show of equestrian studies and stray
dogs, is Perro Perdito.
In this encaustic on panel, the sheen of beeswax becomes the slick
sweaty fur of a dog Burrows photographed in Guanajuato, Mexico, last
summer. The subject of Perro Perdito looks up at us with eyes
clouded over with cataracts. A background of Van Gogh-like whorls helps
us feel what the dog feels — nauseous and dizzy from lack of
sleep and sustenance. Burrows paints only the front part of the dog as
he walks past us, left leg extended far forward, in a gait that feels
both desperate and determined. He will walk until he finds water, food,
compassion, or until he drops. “Perro Perdito” keeps moving because he
must.
Through July 3rd
Currently at the P&H Café is Christopher Robin’s “Will
Work 4 Food.” This is a show loaded with social and sexual satire with
a beautiful nude, a motley crew of contemporary artists behaving like a
band of boisterous Renaissance minstrels, and a portrait of
singer/songwriter Davy Ray Bennett. Working in the style of
15th-century Northern Renaissance painters’ careful observation and
multiple layers of glaze, Robin lays the soul as well as the skin of
his nude model bare and captures Bennett’s unsettling synthesis of the
sensitive and the sardonic, which, like his songs, cuts to the bone.
Through July 7th
