OnTheCusp.org

A Solid First Friday

Last nights First Friday was one of the best this year; so I was told. This was told to me not by a single person but several people I talked to through out the night. As it turns out, I was busy with my own show to take advantage of all was happening, but don't you go thinkning I wasn't paying attention to what was out there. As people swung by my show I kept getting reports of the other venues. I must say, I now hope that I can play catch up and see these shows for my self and perhaps write a few reviews.

In the mean time I wanted to remind everyone of On the Cusp's June Review Writing Experiment, where we are allowing all of you to write and post reviews during the month of June. For more details click the link. Until that time I wanted to repost one of our recent comments which happened to be a nice brief review of two shows from last night.

These review segments were written by anonymous2u:

Not enough time for full reviews tonight, but here are comments on two very good shows worth seeing.

1. Rebecca Lyon's installations at Galerie Penumbra. Not sure about the title, Rock'a my soul, but that might just take a little homework to appreciate. The work itself is engaging, personal, superbly executed, and even emotionally moving. It's downright beautiful, and I heard others at the show using this very same word. I'll have to say, Lyon has come a long long way in a tough medium (fiber). but she is doing noteworthy work with it - really taking it out of the ordinary. go see it for yourself - i think this show is a top-ten contender for the year. BTW, this show may have been a better selection for iMoca's local artist exhibition over Brian Presnell, not meaning to get into that fray here, Christopher.

2. Brian Myers' paintings at the Stutz Art Gallery, Still Life•Death. Myers' calm process and personality contrast with his selection of images of mayhem, disaster, conflict and other items relevant to current events. These are mostly large-scale oils on canvas. I even liked the titles for this show. Sometimes artists don't do their work justice or get too clever or esoteric. These were appropriately not over-thunk. My only criticism of the whole show would be the two small portraits (one of GW Bush and one of Condi Rice, both in fighter jet helmets). Perhaps they were a little forced to fit the theme and the odd wall spaces in this gallery, but these didn't work for me. Regardless, Brian is definitely one of the hot emerging talents in our city. And he's not just living on his laurels - this show reflects new, honest, hard studio efforts, where he achieves excellent results and successful progression of his work. As my two-year-old noticed, the ice looks like ice, the fire like fire, and the tsunami wave (a concept she doesn't even understand) was a convincing ocean to her. There's nothing still about these still lifes. They are effectively disturbing as intended. It's a feeling you might not notice right away, but it will grow on you the longer you look. Nice work. Nicely presented (and I think the walls may just have been patched and painted the night before.:-o)

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