Process geeks will love it. Those who go to exhibits expecting to view fully realized art - a much larger group - will be disappointed. The best pieces here are those that are a pleasure to look at, and although they may be sketchy, you can see the artists’ intelligence at work.
That’s true in Suzanne Schireson’s “Pig Roast on the Hill,’’ a dynamic gouache-and-charcoal rendering of a picnic. Schireson’s forms are quickly drawn, her colors swiftly blotted on. She plots out composition and tonal shifts, and the drawing pulses with energy as everything begins to coalesce. The same goes for Stella Ebner’s graceful watercolor “Sprinklers,’’ a graveyard landscape full of life.
Nataliya Bregel’s tiny prints with watercolor are less than 2 inches tall and about 18 inches long. Each is chopped up into little scenes, so they read like film strips. In “Beit Yanai: Dog Walkers,’’ she pulls in the viewer with the intimacy of her small scale and improbable compositions.
Then there are pieces such as two inkjet works drawn over with pencil and paint by Andrew “Pez’’ Fish. In his statement, Fish says, “I would have never thought to exhibit these drawings, as I do not see them as finished works.’’ Of course, these blurry sketches fall flat. If we could see them beside the completed pieces, the juxtaposition might be fascinating. Alone, they do the artist a disservice.
I felt more generous toward Linda Price-Sneddon’s “Working Drawing - WonderWorlds Installation’’ because I have seen her installations. They’re fun, over-the-top pieces crammed with neon-bright materials such as puff-balls and pompoms, organic and chaotic, reminiscent of Star Trek’s “The Trouble With Tribbles’’ episode. It was a surprise to see her sketch, carefully plotted on graph paper, as fastidious as an engineering diagram.
