Hidden stories and encoded messages underlie the works of Irving Marcus and Laura Hohlwein.
Marcus, a prime candidate for a major retrospective at the Crocker Art Museum, taught for many years at California State University, Sacramento. Hohlwein, a mid-career artist, lives in Sacramento after having spent a number of years on the East Coast.
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At Solomon Dubnick, Hohlwein gives us a series of large-scale abstractions in oil that carry a submerged narrative about the destruction of a historic house on Long Island, N.Y., that was for many years a gathering place for her family.
In "Evening," a ghostly female figure descends a stairway with a black door at the top while the house seems to fly apart around her. In "Nightfall," shards of falling lumber deconstruct an interior that seems to be a bedroom with a notebook or journal lying abandoned on the bed.
"The Girl's Room" evokes a bright place filled with toys, flowers and sunlight now destroyed and left in a jumble of abstracted forms. "Hard Rain," the painting that gives Hohlwein's show its title, pours down forms reminiscent of Arshile Gorky's automatic imagery in a spate of disconnected shapes, some resembling falling houses.
Accompanying the paintings is a series of digital photos in which skeletal hands overlay images of a house. A series of prints on wood repeat imagery from the paintings and photos in an arrangement of hanging panels. These are powerful works as well, as is a book of stunning poems with accompanying images that is set out so you can read it at your leisure.
"Hard Rain" is a profoundly moving show, one in which the artist has put all of her heart and mind.
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/03/30/4374119/victoria-dalkey-fine-shows-by.html#storylink=cpy
"Fine shows by Irving Marcus and Laura Hohlwein"
by Victoria Dalkey. March 30, 2012
reviews
"Fine shows by Irving Marcus and Laura Hohlwein"
by Victoria Dalkey, Sacramento Bee, March 2012
Hidden stories and encoded messages underlie the works of Irving Marcus and Laura Hohlwein.
Marcus, a prime candidate for a major retrospective at the Crocker Art Museum, taught for many years at California State University, Sacramento. Hohlwein, a mid-career artist, lives in Sacramento after having spent a number of years on the East Coast.
[ ... ]
At Solomon Dubnick, Hohlwein gives us a series of large-scale abstractions in oil that carry a submerged narrative about the destruction of a historic house on Long Island, N.Y., that was for many years a gathering place for her family.
In "Evening," a ghostly female figure descends a stairway with a black door at the top while the house seems to fly apart around her. In "Nightfall," shards of falling lumber deconstruct an interior that seems to be a bedroom with a notebook or journal lying abandoned on the bed.
"The Girl's Room" evokes a bright place filled with toys, flowers and sunlight now destroyed and left in a jumble of abstracted forms. "Hard Rain," the painting that gives Hohlwein's show its title, pours down forms reminiscent of Arshile Gorky's automatic imagery in a spate of disconnected shapes, some resembling falling houses.
Accompanying the paintings is a series of digital photos in which skeletal hands overlay images of a house. A series of prints on wood repeat imagery from the paintings and photos in an arrangement of hanging panels. These are powerful works as well, as is a book of stunning poems with accompanying images that is set out so you can read it at your leisure.
"Hard Rain" is a profoundly moving show, one in which the artist has put all of her heart and mind.