Take Notice
Tim Kane and Colleen Skiff
"Take Notice!" is a selection of six artists displayed at the midway point of winter when the days are just beginning to get longer and the first thoughts of renewal, rebirth, hope and change begin to pervade our minds as we emerge from the slumber of darkest days of the year that turn our thoughts inward into a contemplative and reflective phase.
Andrea Hersch’s dreamlike canvasses set the tone for the first annual "Take Notice!" show at the Fulton Street Gallery, located in Troy, New York. Her newly unveiled series of paintings juxtapose many shapes and objects together that defy logic, creating a parallel world where the subconscious dominates. There’s an overall tension to her works that captures the mind hashing out emotional and creative conflicts in an intense and colorful way.
It is that spirit of delving into one’s psyche well below consciousness to find new creative inspirations from the dark recessives of our psychological landscape that spurred the curators at the gallery to assemble this show.
The result is a show of 43 pieces that display very distinctive styles, but nonetheless, work well together in a surprising way through color, line and execution. The art is serious and thought provoking, but there’s an underlying sense of fun and exuberance that ultimately brightens a winter day.
A founding member of the gallery in 1994, Andrea left to return to school for her MFA. Having already shown in New York and Italy, this exhibition is her first major exhibition back in the area. While Hersch anchors the show at the front of the gallery, Tomas Malave occupies the Guiterrez gallery in the back, providing a dichotomy of style to stimulate the viewer in many ways.
Malave, 30, the youngest of the group, is rooted in Baroque and Classical styles with an uncanny eye to use texture and light to convey intense emotions. His two canvases, Shane and Lucenten explode off the surface with anger, hope, despair and innocence.
He won an Art in America Young Artists title when he submitted Shane four years ago, but has never shown it publicly. Malave says he doesn’t play the art game, but he should. He is a gifted painter that should be producing much more work.
Two other artists bridge Hersch and Malave in completely different ways while creating their own narratives nonetheless. Steven Rolf Kroeger’s two-part installation Neopolitan City and Chicocopters serve as a whimsical anchor for the whole show. Neopolitan City is a miniature cityscape made of sugar cookies. The elongations and contours of the cookies masterfully complete the transformation from food to art. Chictocopters turns the shape of fried chicken into helicopters cruising through the air as they head toward his edible city.
Robilee McIntyre’s sculptures were inspired by a book she recently read about politics in the context of good and evil. The works are fantastical angels and devils that spring across the floor propelled by fury and spirituality conveyed by intense hues and grotesque and beautiful angular bodies made of scrap metal, fabric and other found objects.
Rounding out the exhibition are Colleen Quinn’s colorful abstractions on paper using acrylics that trigger one’s imagination with their frenetic energy, and swirling use of line that verges on the chaotic and Ray Felix’s quiet photographs which transform reflections from buildings, people and things into montages and collages that provide strong narratives with a sense of alienation.
McIntyre and Felix are recent transplants to Troy by way of New York City. Quinn, is a professor of art at Berkshire Community College and Steven Rolf Kroeger. a Midwestern native, Kroeger is finishing his MFA at UAlbany this spring.
"Take Notice!" is the type of exhibition that non-profit Fulton Street Gallery does best, highlighting emerging artists from the region that have gained only limited exposure in the past. All of these artists were chosen due to their talent and quality of works that for various reasons have not gained the attention they deserve.
