23 march - 3 june 2007
building
boats+bridges
featuring paintings, photographs, charcoals, sculpture by
Carlos Calderon, Reinaldo Crespo, Walter Sanchez, Aurelio Torres, Gaston Valin
To view the exhibit and works Click here
cocktail reception, saturday, 24 march, 6 pm
Read the mention in the East Hampton Star Click here
artists on artists series, 5 may, 4 pm
visit + discussion led by Abby Abrams
RSVP required for all events.
The Southampton Press - April 12, 2007
Two Gallery Shows To Start the Season
By Eric Ernst
April: This now seems to be the month when the weekend season begins with a vengeance.
Highlighted as it is by a line of traffic, a dearth of parking spaces, and some truly repulsive flowery Easter bonnets, it is not easy to forget the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay’s description of April as arriving “like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.”
At the same time, this period does have some positive developments to consider, not the least being the promise of decent weather (perhaps eventually) as well as the reappearance on the exhibition scene of a number of galleries, such as Karin Sanders Fine Arts in Sag Harbor and Gallery Solar in East Hampton, which have been either shuttered or simply relatively dormant over the winter months.
At Solar, the exhibition features—in line with the gallery’s direction—works by Latino artists from Central and South America embracing a wide variety of styles and directions. Despite this broad inclusionary approach, though, the exhibit, titled “Building Boats and Bridges” is markedly engaging in its visual continuity and refreshingly expansive aesthetic sweep.
Despite the varying techniques and methodologies, the one thing that ties these works together is a sense of intimacy and quiet. In these views of decaying vessels and the dark underpasses of bridges and wharves, there is a certain melancholia that, as Joseph Conrad wrote in “The Mirror of the Sea”: has “the appearance of a prisoner meditating upon freedom in the sadness of a free spirit put under restraint.”
This is particularly apparent in the series of photographs by Walter Sanchez titled “Mar del Plata” (color prints on metallic paper) featuring the rusted hulks of ships in a harbor. Redolent with an ineffable sadness and nostalgia, the works deliver an emotional punch that is profoundly enhanced by their effective contrast in colors and their carefully choreographed abstract compositional structure.
This use of representational abstraction is also present in the paintings by Carlos Calderon, and particularly notable in works such as “Sin Ataduras (No Ties)” (acrylic on canvas, 2005), in which the artist is able to use dynamically powerful overlapping planes that energize the composition but never at the expense of the painting’s narrative flow.
These pieces are reminiscent of—and gain in impact, in no small way, from the relationship they reflect to—American modernist Ralston Crawford’s well-known series of paintings and photographs of the docks of New Orleans. Mr. Crawford’s impact can also be felt in Gaston Valin’s “Voyage I” and “Voyage II” (both oil on linen, 2006) while Reinaldo Crespo’s series, “Los Puentes (The Bridges),” (charcoal on paper) reflect a quieter and less frenetic ambiance.
Also featured are carved sailboats by Aurelio Torres that are elegant in their simplicity and design. The exhibition continues through May 13.