The Feels, a group exhibition showcasing the work of ten Albany area abstract artists, invites the viewer to do just that: feel the phantom texture of smooth ceramic and rough grit and soft fabric; feel the sense of impermanence in fragile materials and moving images; feel the triumph of the subconscious over the rational mind.
“I kept the title vague,” said site director Christie Rose, “because the title says a lot about the exhibition. Just like abstract art, it can be looked at in many different ways.”
Housed in the Albany Barn, a creative arts incubator in the former St. Joseph’s Academy, the Feels emphasizes abstraction, emotion, and organic shapes. It invites us to form our own connections to the work and draw our own conclusions. The exhibition runs through Aug. 25, with viewing hours by appointment only.
“I used to be more of a storyteller with my camera,” said Joel Rhymer. “Now I’m more, I guess, of an artist.” Rhymer’s trio of photographs, Kelso (7, 8, 9) (pictured), hang in a column, and bring to mind the storms of Jupiter. Taken at the Mojave National Preserve, these moody images capture a transitory patch of sand emerging from the wet. Though they look like aerial drone photographs, these are actually miniature landscapes snapped by pointing the camera down between his feet. Blown up, the image turns grainy as sand, an effect enhanced by the coarse paper on which they are printed.
Many of the works on display here evoke a sense of nature. Rachel Gee’s Untitled, a square pillar of paper pulp, brings to mind a monolith of ghostly coral.
Kerry Dayton’s Existence (pictured above), which features vibrant oranges and yellows against cool tanzanite blues in layers of textured oils, suggests the interplay of fire and water, twilight and sunrise. Marisa Cavanaugh’s You Always Loved With One Foot In And One Foot Out (pictured at the top of this article) brings to mind energetic unicellular organisms, playfully dotted with paint like candy buttons. Pete Raup-Kounovsky, who makes his gallery debut in this show, opts for digital life rather than the biological kind, crafting pulsing psychedelic glitch art that glimmers and shifts on looping video.
Contrasting form and material weave together in a collaboration between artists Jackie Zysk and Lydia Sharp (pictured above). Sharp’s knitted fiber works mend the gaps in Zysk’s abstract ceramic bodies, which the artist says are based on Neolithic forms and the negative space of the human hand. The collaboration emphasizes the dichotomy between rough fiber, whose injuries are easily erased, versus ceramic, which can’t be so seamlessly repaired; once mended, obvious cracks still remain, and toxic or water-soluble glues can render the ceramic piece useless as a drinking vessel. “What can fiber teach clay about mending?” Zysk asked.
“Mending that acknowledges something broke,” said Sharp.
Zysk added, “Like scar tissue.”
To schedule a date and time to view the exhibition, email [email protected].
What I’m covering next: Medicine Singers at No Fun.
