Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Allison Miller "Lake," oil, acrylic, and dirt on canvas, 2012 @ Made in LA (Barnsdall)
Having followed Allison's work over the past five years or so, I have observed an earnest evolution within the framework of painting. Aside from the one posted here and just a few others recently at ACME, much of the work lately is easily dismissible for whatever reasons. On the other hand, the few that work seem to really work. One may not take such odds to Vegas, but then again, it's not even the point to suggest as much. "Lake" (pictured here) makes a clear comparison between lights and darks, blue and orange, contrasts and complements---things intermingling, gurgling beneath the surface. Space is understood as layered, lines as aberrations, occasionally stuck where things intersect---all worth considering important. She's at her best when repeated lines are long and shapes cover large areas. Variations in surface texture further heighten the viewing experience where the eye continues to loop from the edge towards the middle then back. In this way, it makes a nice, static foil to Cayetano Ferrer's dynamic light and carpet installation as seen elsewhere in this same show. On this point, these two works--Millers and Ferrer's--may very well be the ones worth remembering the most as standouts in an exhibition that proposes to encapsulate an art moment for such an expansive, sprawling, and incomplete region. On this point, I suppose the aims of the exhibition succeed by reflecting as much.
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