December is the cruelest month for art writers: galleries offer up
holiday shows showcasing their artists, but these agglomerations,
lacking any theme or focus, can exude a potluck air. The writer on
deadline is faced with a dilemma: impose a false unity on the
miscellany with some verbal sleight-of-hand (and live with that for the
rest of his life), or beat a hasty retreat to seek easier prey? The
solution: heed editorial folk wisdom: pick a few pieces to discuss, and
hope that will somehow be representative. Ninety artists are
represented in this show at Kala Art Institute, so only a few of
the 91 drawings, prints, photos, paintings, and mixed-media works can
be discussed here. Still, it’s a fine show with a wide variety of
artwork, and it’s very nicely installed in the foyer and gallery. This
is the last show in this gallery, so sentimentalists may also want to
return one last time before the opening of Kala’s new, larger gallery
around the corner on San Pablo Avenue this spring.
Among the realistic pieces were Dennis Johnson’s nostalgic yet vivid
color photo etching, “Ronnie’s Drive-in Theater;” Stella Kalaw’s moody
pigment print, “First Lamp in Somerville;” Jenny Robinson’s powerfully
energetic monoprint, “Rollercoaster;” Ron Moultrie Sanders’ lyrical
floral photogram, “Pincushion Seeds;” Kyle Rand’s mock-heroic
photograph, “Icarus;” Mary K. Shisler’s surreal pigment print, “Castle
in the Ripples;” and Susan Spann’s sober, eloquent photo-etching,
“Slaughterhouse I.” Abstractions that caught my eye were: Susan Belau’s
etching triptych, “Echo from 9;” Jamie Brunson’s oil, alkyd, and wax on
polyester, “Sway;” Theodora Varnay Jones’ poetic abstract wall relief,
“Transparency #3;” Amanda Knowles’ stylized floral mixed-media drawing,
“Swarm V;” Julie Nelson’s meditative encaustic relief, “Untitled
(Nothing to Recall);” Katherine Warinner’s subtly colored monotype,
“Buoy;” and Seiko Tachibana’s delicately beautiful intaglio, “Origin
Fiore — Nucleus #7.” Pieces memorably mixing figuration and
abstraction included: Lauren Davies’ conceptual print on canvas, “From
inside the house only a relentless dripping could be heard;” Julia
Nelson-Gal’s mixed-media postcard mosaic with painting, “Isn’t She
Lovely?;” Inez Storer’s mixed-media painting, “Untitled”; Peter
Tonningsen’s elegiac avian-themed pigment print, “Fallen: 163554,
Baryphthengus martii 11/18/1972;” and Sylvia Walters’ Japanese-themed
feminist woodcut, “Women’s Work is Never Done.” A special mention goes
to Molly Bradbury’s videotape, “Valley, Part I,” which proves that the
most unpromising landscape (here, the Sacramento Valley, probably), can
be made thrilling and hypnotic. Artists’ Annual runs
through March 29 at Kala Art Institute (1060 Heinz St., Berkeley).
Kala.org.
