Good Vibrations

July 14th through August 18, 2018

Opening reception Saturday, July 14th, 6 - 9 pm

Mother Gallery is pleased to present “Good Vibrations”, with work by Paolo Arao, Angela Heisch and Ryan Reggiani. Drawing and the grid are at the heart of the line and logic of this exhibition. Although a grid could imply mechanistic behavior, or an automated artist, in these works the hand is ever-present. Using the grid as a point of departure, the artists draw its linear confines out of alignment and into a coy dissonance.

With sewn compositions in canvas and cotton fabrics, Arao bridges the traditions of handicraft and painting. The tension of stretching causes the grid to skew, softening the geometry, and calling attention to the non-conformity of the lines and his ultimate subject, Queerness. 

While Arao uses discordant color schemes that are at times intentionally uncomfortable, Heisch aims her pallet at luminosities. Her paintings hum with tiny brush marks; no line is unconsidered and nothing is extra. The square is crucial to her compositions, which she sees as a kind of “headspace” or mirror reflecting the viewer. Like a map of a mind her compositions come in and out of focus. 

Reggiani’s work appears to be on the verge of functionality. The accessibility of recognizable objects is his entry point to negate assumptions about structure and ornamentation. His free-standing sculpture of blackened steel might transmit or receive frequencies or serve as a screen between public and private.

Whether through color, shape, or material, these artists create by strictly limiting parameters. Restraint generates framework, and it’s here, between the rigid line and the protean hand that the “Good Vibrations” resonate.