Whole Gallery’s Animal Attraction closed in late February, but one piece in particular from the gallery’s examination of the animal kingdom has stayed with me. You cannot imagine how beautiful Animal Attraction’s hand-made ant farms are and how unique a path each colony of ants has forged within their confined space. These fascinating farms, filled with sand and glitter by Jennifer Coster, blur the boundaries between drawing, minimalism, and childhood science fairs.
Jennifer is an MFA candidate at MICA’s Rinehart School of Sculpture. To view more of her work, go to jennifercoster.net/.
RISD Talents in Baltimore
Nudashank’s latest exhibition, curated by painter Seth Adelsberger and art blogger extraordinaire Alex Ebstein, features work by two very different painters, Ted Gahl and Tatianna Berg, who both trained at the Rhode Island School of Design.
Moving painting very much off the wall, Berg covers sculptural shapes, drips bold colors over their subtly toned surfaces, and mounts these forms on casters. These work well standing alone or in clusters as a rather Baroque version of Anne Truitt. Berg calls these objects tents and describes their 1970s origins in the exhibition. Read her articulate artist’s statement, complete with thoughts about Drop City.
Gahl exhibits paintings in a range of styles—some are boldly executed with thick, textured paint. Others are layered, sometimes with collage and then distressed with precise surface incisions. One large painting collages layers of red-lined graph paper. Its lines and dashes are reminiscent of elementary school writing instruction. This paper was rescued from a dumpster, a great art school creative tradition! Another pays homage to Pierre Bonnard’s still lifes in interiors. Gahl told me he loved the French post-Impressionist’s recent retrospective. Apparently, many young painters embraced Bonnard as a result of the retrospective, proving, happily for me, that the great art of the past remains an inspiration for the rising generation of talent.
Filed in: Nudashank, Whole Gallery.
Doreen Bolger is always on the move because she can’t stop seeing, supporting, and writing about the arts in and around Baltimore City. Her lengthy love affair for the arts began in Long Island when her father, an executive in the textile industry, brought home breathtaking fabrics every night from the heart of the garment district. 