Visual Art: Flourish opens at Robischon Gallery

Flourish, a group exhibit, opened today at Robischon Gallery, featuring ten abstract artists. Primarily paintings as well as sculpture by Brad Miller, and installation by Katy Stone, the work is sensual, composed of rich candy colors, sparkling synthetic material (in the case of Stone), and delicate though daring formal composition. The title of the exhibit which connotes perhaps a sense of the lush and brilliant not only presents work that lives up to the suggestion, but artist’s whose technique demonstrates that sparseness can be just as ornamental as intricacy. Particularly demonstrated by the pieces by Kathy Moss, the use of abstraction takes on a feel of the poetic: an economy of form and figure as opposed to over-use. Overall the exhibit expresses what is possibly the greatest strength of abstraction: an invitation to the synaesthetic. A confusion of sensory (if you’ve ever felt that you can “taste” the colors in a painting, you know what I mean) that rather sharpens our intuitive clarity about how we perceive beauty. In simpler terms, so much of the art world requires that we filter our experience of art (which is evocative because it’s tangible) through a single sense (don’t touch, for example). And though much contemporary installation and performance art seeks often successfully to break these barriers, we haven’t (thankfully) abandoned painting and sculpture (which for better or worse, really shouldn’t be touched if they are to be preserved). The work on display in Flourish succeeds in subtly breaking the barriers between viewer and art without breaking the rules (for purposes of clarity, no you can't touch the art and they don't actually make noise or fill the room with perfume in a way that anyone would collectively agree upon). But through vibrancy and intense sight-appeal, at the instinctive (not physical) level, these are paintings that are can be smelled, sculpture that can be heard, compositions of color that can wind through the nerves –if one hasn’t so internalized sensory distinction necessary to day-to-day life as to be completely numb to the idea. Flourish hits at our aesthetic innocence in this way where the content isn’t so obvious or conversely demanding that we’re overwhelmed by interpretation and can instead bask in that original glow of encountering something exquisite –however you see, taste, or feel it.

Flourish is on-view at Robischon Gallery, 1740 Wazee St, through June 21st. The opening reception is Thursday May 15th, 6-8pm

For more info visit www.robischongallery.com