[Panels from the Scrambler series by Rosemarie Fiore]

Last Friday was gorgeous and a great opportunity to see some bright, dynamic, thought-provoking art.

Started at enoteca to see local artist Tammy Reynolds Citron’s show, “Reclaiming the Frame”. Vibrant photos of a tree, a reflection in water, and an Italian village were set behind a window and then the artist finished each scene up onto the grids and frame in acrylic. Your eyes bounced back and forth between the two media and between the dimensions of behind the glass and outside the window. It’s always interesting to see something 2-D painted on something 3-D like that. There were also dress forms made into showy lamps but I wasn’t into them as much.

Next stop was Migration to see Suzanne Howes-Stevens’ “New Paintings”, a series of Northeastern waterscapes on yellowed maps, showing peaceful scenes of natural beauty. I liked the composition of each piece and the contrast of the finely detailed painting of trees, water, and grasses against the faded word and lines of the background, but the painting technique itself seemed to try to be too precise and took away from the work overall, since the painted scenes (the landscape part, not the entire piece) looked a little like the stuff you see in the art stores in malls.

Third stop was Second Street Gallery where UVa grad Rosemarie Fiore’s exhibit “Machines and Process Paintings” dominated the normally subdued space. The gist of it was her using all kinds of machines like household appliance, lawn mowers, or even a carnival ride to make art. Some of the pieces like the Spirograph-like paintings from the Scrambler series shown at the top, wowed with their sheer size and also because of the originality of their production. But other pieces, like paintings put in waffle irons or a painting made by putting a piece of paper on the back window of her car and letting the windshield wiper go arc back and forth with fluids on it, seem to be less about art and more about experimentation.

Next stop was Les Yeux du Monde to see the offensive Trophy Stool kicked out of the UVa Art museum, but this gallery unfortunately closed earlier than the rest, so I had to content myself with peering through the windows. No infamous stool was in sight. Why’d you close so prematurely LYDM? Instead, all I could see was an exhibit by the same artist from Second Street who has an exhibit of what looked like 20 or so paintings made by watching a Bob Ross video over and over again. I guess that was an interesting experiment but the result was a bunch of similarly cheesy-looking landscapes.

Last stop was at Mono Loco to see “I Paint with my Eyes Closed” by George Andrews. Normally, I like to go see art shows in restaurants as they are usually less stuffy than the galleries and I do like to be around wine, food and music. Mono Loco, however seemed a poor venue for this occasion. 8 or so of what looked like framed fingerpaintings hung in a windowed corner behind a booth full of customers. I couldn’t get very close to check them out and there didn’t seemed to be any artist’s statement posted anywhere to let me know what they were about. So I dodged the kids and bustling servers and got the heck out of there.

All in all, a lot of color, a lot of thought put into the work. Anybody see any of the other exhibits that night? Would love to hear your feedback.

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