Liz Ward: Aqueous
Women & Their Work, through Feb. 11

By Rachel Koper
Austin Chronicle
January 13, 2006

Take a wintertime dip into these rippling watercolors and silverpoint drawings by artist Liz Ward. Her art is based on either plant-cell structures drawn in a delicate, concise, and rhythmically soothing way or on underground rivers, rendered in more ravishing watercolors. Ward began with the silverpoint drawings 13 years ago, then added watercolors 10 years ago. She latched onto a topographical image in a newspaper and began painting aquifers. About half the aquifer pieces are based on real maps, though eventually she began to let the warping of the large papers influence the composition of her works. This is coolness. She is able to listen to the paper, take direction from the materials themselves. In the richly layered and quietly provocative show at Women & Their Work, Minor Aquifers (Deep Blue) demonstrates her mapping technique coming together with the linear qualities of her silverpoint petri dishes. It is the most recently completed work in this vividly consistent progression of works.

Ward's edge quality is a fine thing to see. Working from light to dark, she lets each shape dry on the cold-pressed, rough-cotton paper. She constructs gorgeous little color moments where one shade creeps up to another. Primarily she paints two sets of color rings: a light one, then a deep ultramarine blue or violet or an iron-oxide-heavy tone like the Lunar Earth pigment from Daniel Smith. She picks out several topographical spots for the darker "aquifers." The subtle color and value changes give the compositions an interesting light balance and a type of dialogue between two tones. To appreciate its strengths, it must be seen in person. The roiling texture of the bowing and stretching paper, combined with the gentle coaxing of the dark values out of aqueous forms, is the focus of the piece.

One nice thing about the show at Women & Their Work is that the smaller works serve as instructional bits for the more significant pieces. With the diminutive yet charming Flow Mix, the artist's intention is a technical mastery over two differently weighted pigments. Chemists could tell us why blue pigments always seem to absorb more evenly and quickly into paper (and why they generally fade faster also). Browns/anything-with-iron-in-it are coarser in grain and chunkier. Ward makes a blue circle and a brown one, then waits until a certain moment in dryness at which point she drags a little river down between the two. The brown drifts and perfectly settles on top of the cool blue tone. This loses the precious edge effect but highlights the mysterious separations that occur in solution. Timing is the key here, and Ward nails it. This large grouping of works is a quiet storm and shows off her patience and tenacity. Inspired and semimagical, this is great artwork.

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Moving Art From Two Texas Women

Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
Austin American-Statesman
January 19, 2006

Unintentionally, Sydney Yeager and Liz Ward have joined in artistic celebration of nature and movement. The two venerable Texas women artists currently enjoy solo shows at D. Berman Gallery and the nearby Women & Their Work, respectively. Unalike in mood and medium, both bodies of work glorify the abstract beauty of motion.

Always a painter who can't resist reveling in paint for paint's sake, Yeager now offers us seven medium to large oil paintings (from $3,200 to $5,600) feature plumes of vivid colors undulating, swooping, shimmying and zigzagging. Brush strokes are still visible in thick, shiny oil paint, literally underlining all the made movement. What these paintings lack in Yeager's usual complexity and depth, they mostly make up for with a very willful and almost giddy playfulness.

Unfortunately, Ward's delicate paintings teeter on getting totally lost in Women & Their Work's poorly lighted galleries. And the sparse installation ends up looking more half-finished than cooly minimal.

Fortunately, Ward's elegant images overcome the unprofessional presentation. Her watercolor paintings and silverpoint drawings over gesso paint (ranging from $950 to $6,500) look at first like hugely magnified cells or amoebae. And perhaps they are. But mostly these are lovely abstraction serving visual meditations on the qualities of water and its properties. Ward's fluid shapes and lines float. In masterly fashion, she extracts the lustrous quality of watercolor with perfection. Equally exquisite are the delicate arrangements of finely drawn lines that overlay luminous fields of color. It's as if Ward's managed to render by hand the split-second movement of a ripple cutting through water. Cool.

("Billow & Fold" continues 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. today-Saturday, D. Berman Gallery, 1701 Guadalupe St. Free. 477-8877. "Liz Ward: Aqueous" continues 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, noon to 4 p.m. Saturdays through Feb. 11. Women & Their Work, 1710 Lavaca St. Free. 477-1064.)

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The Gospel of Lead
99 problems but the art ain't one

By Rachel Koper
Austin Chronicle
January 20, 2006

"Roses in the Hospital," "Say Goodbye to Substance," "The Diva Surgery," and "Eunuch Euthanasia" are past exhibition titles conceived of by the young and feisty San Antonio artist Dario Robleto. He'll be in Austin for Talking Art with Dario Robleto and Jeremy Blake at Arthouse's Jones Center for Contemporary Art this Saturday. This is a good bet for a stimulating afternoon, straight from the horse's mouth. These two rising stars on the national scene – both have shown at the Whitney Museum – are agitators of sorts, with a history of weirdly personal, spicy commentary (spicy in a nice and confrontational way). They create bits of cultural whiplash with acerbic and demanding voices. If you read the title cards for their works, you're rewarded with oddball insights and quirky materials lists. Robleto's found object/assemblage style of sculpture tends to make more sense, too.

Do not go to this talk if you are looking for feel-good decorative art. This is a show that is beautiful in its truthiness – it lifts a slice of documentary out of the quagmire of American history. The manufacture of quality firearms is definitely one of our areas of expertise here in the USA. But do we take responsibility for it? Do we own it? Generally no. But Blake and Robleto are serious about this topic, and they share a morbid fascination with the Winchester Mystery House, the Southern California home built by the gun heiress Sarah Winchester. According to the estate's Web site, she felt haunted by the people who were killed with the guns her family manufactured, so she added rooms spontaneously for these ghosts for 38 years. Her house contains 160 rooms, 40 staircases, and 17 chimneys; she was paranoid and manifested this through architecture. That serves as the major motif of this collaboration between these guys, with Blake's video and Robleto's assemblages seeking to relive and reinvestigate the psychology at work.

These two artists conjure their own version of this guilt-ridden freak show. They invite you in (the gallery has added walls to create a disorienting labyrinth) and charm you with their clever titles and kitsch. Then, once you are isolated in a dark small room, they present you with sculptures made of bullets and human bones and videos that resemble blood splatters. What you think then is, of course, up to you. I am not haunted, like some moms and veterans are. Not one bit of sentiment for my hard-earned tax money paying for the shooting of folks I've never met. I got 99 problems, but the gun manufacturing ain't one.

Talking Art with Dario Robleto and Jeremy Blake takes place Saturday, Jan. 21, 3pm, at Arthouse's Jones Center for Contemporary Art, 700 Congress. For more information, visit www.arthousetexas.org.

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Collage
Gabbiani Pulls Pieces Together

Erin Keever
Austin American-Statesman
January 26, 2006

Only eight artworks make up Francesca Gabbiani's exhibition at Lora Reynolds Gallery. Yet each of these works consists of many pieces of paper. Gabbiani creates collages, to which acrylic and gouache are added.

The collage medium often encourages a spontaneous and experimental process resulting in sometimes fragmented compositions, but not here. These are carefully constructed scenes depicting boldly cinematic interiors (deco looking homes) and exteriors (dark tree limbs over richly hued skies).

Not surprisingly Gabbiani cites cinematography and the city of Los Angeles as influences. They, like her work are assembled and frequently associated with stylized artificiality.

Ironically the two works that could be called exteriors, which are landscapes, are smaller than the interiors. They silhouette tall fir trees against saturated sunsets reminiscent of "Gone With the Wind" backdrops. Color choices and balancing detail with simplicity make these collages jewel-like.

Gabbiani's interiors have features commonly attributed to Surrealist canvases. The painted scenes are strikingly empty. They also all include prominent stairways or doorways, symbolic of psychological passages perhaps.

Unfortunately, when seen in person, these larger images (78 inches by 104 inches), suffer from their not-so-seamless production. Whether they are meant to show illusionistic space or instead negate a sense of depth, similar to Postimpressionist paintings or Japanese woodblock prints, is unclear. Individually colored shapes force awkward relationships and fail to communicate a cohesive whole.

Most exceptional and intriguing is Gabbiani's "White Book." A small accordion-style book pulls out to showcase brilliant laser-cut images in well-suited format. Inspired by the popular novel "Devil in the White City," by Erik Larson, Gabbiani includes miniature architectural structures and fair rides as "illustrations." "White Book" contrasts the precious and the ominous, as do the other works, but wins with its elegant and multi-faceted sophistication.

("Francesca Gabbiani: Wonderland" continues 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesdays-Saturdays, through February 25, Lora Reynolds Gallery, 300 West Ave., No. 1318, free, 215-4965.)

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