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Exhibits spread a wide canvas
Michelle Van Parys’ I Want to . . ., gelatin silver prints with graphite and conte, 1997, is a part of the exhibition “Romancing the Everyday” at the Arts Center in St. Petersburg. |
By LENNIE BENNETT
© St. Petersburg Times
published May 23, 2002
An established group of artists with many styles and two women creating variations on a theme enliven two exhibits at the Arts Center.
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ST. PETERSBURG -- Quantity and quality converge -- and are sometimes at odds -- in two new shows at the Arts Center.
The larger of the two is the 52nd annual exhibition of the Florida Artist Group Inc., formed in 1949 to encourage the visual arts.
Membership in FLAG is selective, but once in, artists are guaranteed a slot in the show. So, while it is not a juried show in terms of entrance, works are judged, this year by Ed Wolfley, professor emeritus and former head of the art department at the University of Cincinnati. Nor does the work have to be new, though most are.
It is a show that yields gems and less polished art, and its size and diversity of themes, media and styles guarantee something for everyone. Roberta Schofield's Solar Shift was a deserved Best of Show winner, a flattened, airy landscape of color blocks David Hockney could love. Admirable landscapes painted with a more literal hand are Market-Provence by Chryssie B. Tavarides and Charlotte Street by Jean Wagner Troemel.
Roberta Schofield’s Solar Shift, oil on board, 1999, is Best of Show in “The Florida Artist Group 52nd Annual Exhibition.”
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Two standouts among the abstract works are Stretch Every Nerve by Elizabeth Clement and Soul in Ashes by Morris Mitchell. Both artists use a single extravagant color -- caramel from Clement and red from Mitchell -- paired with black. In their own ways, they are two of the most sophisticated works on display.
Organizers expected about 70 works instead of the almost 100 that arrived, so Betsy Orbe Lester, who designed the installation, is to be commended for creating as much white space as possible in a crowded field. Be sure to turn the corner of the front gallery's back wall to see Lois Bartlett Tracy's 1 Space Series, a complex work worth seeking out in an awkward alcove.
'Romancing the Everyday'
Smaller, but of much interest is "Romancing the Everyday: Anne Siems and Michelle Van Parys." Pairing these women was inspired. Siems works in mixed media and Van Parys in photography, though her prints are so layered and manipulated that they could qualify as mixed media also. What they share is an aesthetic sensibility that juxtaposes familiar, even comforting, images with a dark, disturbing subtext.
Anne Siems’ Rullir, mixed media on paper, 2000, and is part of the exhibition “Romancing the Everyday.”
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Siems' works on paper are the visual equivalent of an Emily Dickinson poem -- simple and naive at first glance but fraught with questions about love, death and nature. Women are Siems' subject, though they never appear wholly embodied. Painted in folk art fashion, heads and hands are posed to pray or cradle, but are rendered powerless without connecting limbs. Diaphanous white gowns spill tears from empty sleeves that attract dragonflies and flowers but are bereft of human life. Small landscapes appear like brief dreams in the background.
Siems hand-sews brown paper bags together to create "canvases" she densely works with paint and inlaid objects. Flowing through is a narrative in a language the artist invented, reinforcing the sense of a dream vaguely remembered, not clearly understood.
Michelle Van Parys' photographs fall into two groups. The first offers a series of single images gathered into what she calls "formations, each with an implied narrative." The second, more recent group layers photographic images onto a single print. All the prints are cross-hatched with graphite, shaded with conte crayon or otherwise enhanced. I Want to . . . is a repository of feminine plans seeming to aspire to pleasing someone else, presumably a man. Taking chances is both suggestive and scary in Roulette; Matchmaker, a tender exploration of connecting with the opposite sex.
"What do women want?" Sigmund Freud once asked famously and rhetorically. "Romancing the Everyday" does not answer the question, but it does provide insight into what women think about.
-- Lennie Bennett can be reached at (727) 893-8293 or lennie@sptimes.com.
Art review
"Romancing the Everyday: Anne Siems and Michelle Van Parys" and "The Florida Artist Group 52nd Annual Exhibition" are on view through June 28 at the Arts Center, 719 Central Ave., St. Petersburg. The center is open Monday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday noon to 4 p.m. Admission is free. Also on display is "Deconstructions," work from Eckerd College's Programs for Experienced Learners and an exhibit of work by students at Canterbury School of Florida. Call (727) 822-7872 or go to www.theartscenter.org.
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