A Quiet (and Powerful) Place: "somewhere i have never travelled..."
Core Artists of Fountain Street – Part I January 18–February 18, 2024
~ A Review by Robert Sullivan
It is an absolute truth that the call to be an artist is something every creative individual has heard. The voice speaks very quietly, but with mysterious, intrinsic power (much like the e.e. cummings poem, after which the exhibition is titled). The same particular intensity, subtle but unmistakable, emanates from this show at Fountain Street Gallery; I felt it when I walked into the space. And when I stepped closer to encounter individual works, I received that same impression, but one tailored towards each artist’s vision, each artist’s creative pilgrimage.
“Travelling” suggests a sojourn to a destination in some form or another, and the concept of “place” is examined along multiple vectors by this group of artists. Rebecca Skinner’s interior/exterior photographs of abandoned places contain a textural richness revealing a morphological study not merely of paint, brick, and wood, but also the chronological layers of story. The vibrant cityscapes that fluidly leap from the brush of Chris Plunkett depict places familiar to me (especially the NYC scenes for this expat New Yorker), as I’m sure they are to others - however, the intensity of his palette turns recognizable metropolitan scenes into urban spectacles out of fondly remembered dreams.
left: R. Skinner - Interior V - photograph on aluminum 12 x 8 in. | right: C. Plunkett - W. 42nd St. - Oil on panel, 36 x 24 in.
An excursion into history denotes not so much an exploration into a physical realm, but rather a conceptual one, and artists undertake this expedition often. As far as histories go, Art History is not generally seen as comedic, but Alexandra Rozenman’s paintings wittily guide me into that place, wryly blending folklore into cultural conversations with (and in painted homage to) the renowned exemplars of Modernism. The Suitcase Series of works offered by Nilou Moochhala display vintage pieces of luggage (the totemic emblems of travel), interiors lovingly lined with precious objects and well-worn photos from the artist’s personal histories, reifying the cases as reliquaries of time and memory. Kamal Ahmad’s video work and installations amplify the liminal spaces of displacement as places of great tension between the self and the callous lenses trained upon ethnic identity, causing me to pause and consider how humanity, compassion, and empathy need to return to issues surrounding immigration and cultural constructs.
A. Rozenman - Blind Date with Hopper on Red Square - Oil on canvas, 36 x 60 in.
left: N. Moochhala - My Very Own Suitcase Series: 08. Todna (Break) - Suitcase with printed photographs on fabric, mirrors, clothespins, beads, safety pins, 15”w x 8”d x 14”h
right: K. Ahmad - Video Installation, Dimensions variable
Objects, too, are subject to the idea of place, taking up the same dimensional planes of space as we who would observe, use, hold, or, well… place them. A striking series of cyanotypes by Vanessa R.Thompson float surprisingly ethereal silhouettes of sex toys across the picture plane in ghostly near-abstraction, their apparent transparency revealing a sort of inner structure, giving a kind of being (or even soul) to objects made for ecstatic voyages in the physical world. And in various places all around the gallery, Molly Dee’s colorful figurative works reference classical Goddess sculpture, at once breaking free of traditional molds in bursts of glorious hues, and I imagined the pieces transcending the object-ness of their materiality, imbued as they are with optical and gestural dynamic movement.
left: V.R. Thompson - Fervid - Cyanotype, 12 x 16 inches | right: M. Dee - Nike - foam, plaster and paint, 27"w x 65"h x 30.5"d
It is no secret that destinations are almost always secondary to the journeys themselves, recognizing that what one learns along the way is of greater import. In a parallel narrative to this show’s theme, through the insightfulness, skill, and heartfelt sincerity of these excellent artists, I recognized that the very process of making is its own kind of odyssey. And I am grateful that, for artists especially, this is an adventure which has no end.