Struck Off Center

Struck Off Center
Jeff Fichera, Dan Gratz, Emily Hass, Clinton King, Raphael Zollinger, Vidvuds Zviedris
Curated by Brigitte Mulholland

 

The sound of a bell
struck off center
vanishes in haze
-Buson

Struck off Center unites six artists who engage with the ephemeral. Working in painting, printmaking, and mixed media, they share an interest in the transitory and ethereal, creating works that engage with the inevitability of change and the passage of time: uncovering and chasing those fleeting in-between spaces we occupy. Whether tracing memory through architecture, dissolving painted surfaces that play with light and shadow, or creating ghostly prints from old, degraded photographs, their practices summon sensations of the impermanence that is fundamental to the human condition. To invoke the ephemeral is to indicate, at best; each moment we experience is always slightly beyond us and our mind’s grasp. The works in this exhibition reveal aspects of our perceptual world that cannot be defined or captured. They reveal dreamy, mysterious states and shimmering sensations that are never quite one singular, fixed thing but rather evocative of various phenomenological experiences.

 

Jeff Fichera’s rigorous observational paintings are records of the fleeting effects of light on holographic gift paper. A small square of a single sheet offers almost infinite possibilities and iterations. A subtle shift in where a beam of light hits, or where the observer is standing creates an entirely different landscape of abstracted color for Fichera to capture and masterfully translate. The paintings themselves shimmer and transform with every subtle change in viewpoint.

Dan Gratz paints ethereal cloudscapes that transcend place and time, transporting the viewer into an intangible sphere of otherworldliness. Evoking dreamstates and even wisps of higher cosmic orders, the paintings are imbued with the traditions of landscape painting yet offer more imaginative outcomes.

Emily Hass uses found paper materials as a platform on which to explore elements of architecture and cultural memory. Her “Exiles” series is drawn from historical blueprints of the homes of persecuted artists and intellectuals in 1930s Germany. By outlining an actual, physical structure that was an important part in the lives of real people, the addresses a tension between the monumental and the impermanent, and contemplates the fragility of life and the seemingly durable things we build.

Clinton King’s work weaves imagery based on loose Jungian theoretical suggestion with crisp painterly abstractions whose spectral presence defies obvious conclusion. Shrouded in ambiguity, his paintings offer glimpses into the possibilities at play in deeper states of consciousness.

Raphael Zollinger’s aluminum prints are partially sourced and inspired from personal photographs of the artist and his family’s archives. The degradation of both memory and their material manifestations—photographs—invoke the tenuousness of our existence and the futility of our desire to capture, stop, and hold time against the utter inevitability of its march forward.

Vidvuds Zviedris’s paintings are deeply personal meditations on both painting itself and the human condition, offered to viewers as an opportunity for their own introspective contemplation. His widespread travels manifest in intuitive and richly colored works that defy culture and borders, focusing instead on the dynamic and mysterious interior lives we all experience. 

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