The New York Times 

Exploring the Gamut of Contemporary Art

By D. DOMINICK LOMBARDI

Published: June 17, 2001

 

For the last 15 years, there has been no one dominant movement or style in visual art. The current exhibition at the Katonah Museum of Art here, ''Breaking the Rules: Art 2001'' illustrates this point by featuring art from the tristate area created since 1996.

In her juror's statement, Eugenie Tsai writes, ''This exhibition seeks art that explores traditional innovation, innovative tradition, figurative abstraction, sculptural painting, iconic narratives, nostalgia for the future, or any other in-between categories that manifest themselves in art at the dawn of the 21st century.''

''Transparency'' by Daniel Bejar of Vails Gate, N.Y., underlines how difficult it is to categorize contemporary art.

Inside a wooden free-standing kiosk, Mr. Bejar places a large piece of vellum paper onto which he has used lard to draw the shape of a woman. The obvious reference to body image, and the growing oil stain that the fat makes as it slowly seeps into the paper, has a subtle, yet effective, visual punch.

Camille Eskell of New Canaan, Conn., offers her thoughts on body image in a wall hanging sculpture called ''Tattooed Jody: Nike (Truncated Series).''

Here, the artist constructs a hollow peach-colored torso of a mature woman; covering her breasts with a brassiere that has dainty ballerinas stitched on it.

All over the body, Ms. Eskell transfers repetitious images of a much younger nude woman crouching, her outstretched hand raised as if to say, ''Not now, I'm dreaming.'' Whatever the message, Ms. Eskell is sure to capture the viewer's imagination with this potent combination of symbolic references.

The art of Sandra K. Meagher of Rowayton, Conn., deals more specifically with time. The main object in her installation, ''Diary,'' is a legless bed suspended from the ceiling with near invisible fishing line. On the bed, Ms. Meagher places a handmade quilt made of stitched-together laundry softener sheets stuffed with variously colored dryer lint.

By doing this, ''Diary'' makes a stunning representation of the mental state one experiences when sleeping deeply, while at the same time highlighting the bizarre connectedness of most any dream sequence.

Kaz McCue, a Surrealist from Bethel, Conn., also uses dream scape imagery in ''The Trouble With Fur.'' By putting a bird cage filled with freshly sheared lamb's wool atop what looks like a cat's scratching post covered with a bright, synthetic red boa, Mr. McCue creates a work that would have fit nicely into any of the International Exhibitions of Surrealism held from 1935 to 1968.

Alessandr Razin of Hewlett, N.Y., could also be characterized as a Surrealist. His collaged and painted antique headboard titled ''The White Ship'' loosely combines the dread found in the art of Hieronymus Bosch with the wit of Saul Steinberg's depictions.

Nancy Reinker of Weston, Conn., balances the biomorphic with the psychological. Her imaginings lean more toward the hideous and the fantastical in her ink-on-paper drawing titled ''Life Lines.''

In his black and white photo-collage titled ''Portrait of Marc Tauss II,'' Chambliss Giobbi of New York City offers up his version of Marcel Duchamp's ''Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2'' (1912).

In presenting a dizzying collection of convulsing representational forms that defy all aspects of reality, Mr. Giobbi creates a neo-Cubist tour de force that is hard to forget.

William Knight, a nonrepresentational painter from Burlington, N.J., offers two encaustic-on-panel works that appear to be derived from visual or emotional memories.

''Leaning'' by Soonae Tark of Sunnyside, N.Y., created another highly abstracted and colorful painting that is candy to the eyes, while Suk Semoon of Carmel, N.Y., offers another form of abstraction, a thick circle of broken glass that is both hard to look at and intensely seductive.

''Neural (from Matrix Series),'' a work in white ink on black paper by Eva Lee of Ridgefield, Conn., depicts biomorphic forms that suggest technology, DNA and black hole mapping. Laura Moriarty of Kingston, N.Y., also creates curious line-based images, only her process is more complicated.

After pouring liquefied, colored waxes over wood, Ms. Moriarty then sands back the surface, revealing the spontaneous swirling and blending of the colors. Over this flattened surface, she paints a series of linear markings that suggest counting or cartography, bringing order to chance.

Roger Mudre of Weston creates the show's most powerful work titled ''Capite Pericharti II (Risk one's life).'' Over a field of minute skulls, Mr. Mudre paints flowers and a blue ribbon. On the left are three small panels that represent blood cells. This juxtapositioning alludes to blood-to-blood diseases, and their devastating effect on our globe's population.

The paintings of Kevin Klein of White Plains address human frailty with as much directness as Mr. Mudre, though his message is a bit more general.

''Cat Scratch, 1999'' and ''Bruised Wrist, 1999'' are just what the title says they are, close-up, and highly clinical, photo-realist views of cut and bruised human flesh.

Like autopsy photographs, we learn nothing about the individual. We only know of the injury or the misfortune.

''Breaking the Rules: Art 2001'' will be on view through June 24 at the Katonah Museum of Art, Route 22 at Jay Street. Information: (914) 232-9555.