First Friday reviews, April 2014

Quicksand: Landscape of the Feminine by Anila Quayyum Agha Gallery 924 at the Arts Council through April 25 (out of 5)

If you paid a visit to the TINY II exhibit at Gallery 924 last December, you saw - but hopefully didn't bump into - Anila Quayyum Agha's installation "Unbearable Beauty," consisting of maybe a dozen hawthorn branches coated in acrylic, sticking out of the wall. There's nothing tiny about what this installation has grown into - a whole forest of honey locust thorns painted white - sticking out of the wall, entitled "Murmuration." How willing are you, this installation seems to ask, to indulge your curiosity and engage with such a work of art?

But the other work on display isn't quite so prickly. Her collaged drawings, which blend embroidery and textiles - crafts that are traditionally the province of women - might just inspire contemplation of the place of the feminine in art.

Herron School of Art and Design Senior Thesis Exhibition Works by Crystal France and Evan Hauser Harrison Center for the Arts through April 25

Crystal France is a skilled painter who works with a variety of materials - oils, encaustic on paper, pencil on Dura-lar - all in service of self-portraiture. And while those cross-media explorations pay off in this exhibition, it was a traditional painting (oil on canvas) that had the biggest impact for me: "Conjoined," which portrays France and her sister - identical twins - joined at the head.

The sculptor Evan Hauser, who also works confidently across a variety of media, focuses more on childhood dreams than France's adolescent self-perception. The ceramic "Child's Play" portrays a boy who may be innocently shooting off a slingshot, but is, in any case, standing on a missile. It's a treat to see such fresh and vibrant work by two artists who complement one another so perfectly.

Holy Ground: The Works of Lauren Kussro Primary Gallery; closing reception April 18

If you've ever seen Lauren Kussro at work - say, intently cutting with an X-Acto knife - you've seen her achieving a certain calm in her precise work that takes cues from the repetitive patterns she finds in the natural world, in the forms of barnacles, flowers and roots. And that feeling of calm is, in part, what she hopes to give to viewers of her art.

"Through this exhibition, I offer the gift of a quiet space," Kussro says in her artist statement. Perhaps the most stunning works in this exhibition were the most functional; for instance, "In Aere Noctiluca," a hanging lamp that resembles a glowing jellyfish in the depths of the ocean.

Those of a certain age will remember the television series Wonder Woman, starring Linda Carter. Cartoonist, artist, and frequent NUVO contributor Wayne Bertsch (of "Barfly" and "Gadfly" fame) surely enough finds room for Carter in one of his paintings on display.

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First Friday reviews, April 2014