7/1/2010 - West Side Leader
By Roger DurbinDOWNTOWN AKRON — If you hear there’s an art exhibit called Figuratively Speaking, as the new display at Summit Artspace is titled, you might expect a selection of portraits by the artists of their friends or favorite models. In this case, you’d be wrong.
This exhibit, which is on display through Aug. 1, looks at the human form through the special lenses of the four area artists who were summoned to gather together works to put on view. Featured artists include Rachel Gentner, Bonnie Stipe, Charles Szabla and Ron White.
For Bath artist Szabla, his display includes 20 small pastel drawings on paper — all of which are framed identically — that essentially do not fracture or deconstruct the human form but instead examine it ever so closely in terms of “form, color, shapes,” Szabla said in an interview.
The 20 works — all created in 2010 and simply titled “Nude No. 1” through “Nude No. 20” — seem to zoom in on various body parts and aim to reveal the subtleties to be found in the endless creases, joints, folds and angles the human shape can take.
Szabla pointed to a sun-drenched window in the galleries and called attention to a small decal on the window, which cast a distended shadow of itself on the side windowsill.
“That’s where my attention goes,” he said, “on the design, light and shadows that can come from looking at details.”
From a certain angle and in a rare light, a flexed elbow can look quite abstract.
Szabla’s figures speak volumes, to play on the exhibit’s title. And so do those of figural sculpture White. West Akron resident White has a master’s degree in figural sculpture, which represents a pretty rarified subfield of this artform.
White focuses on the “here and now” of his subjects, with time and place shifting as quickly as the visual impressions White gives to his pieces. All of his free-standing works in the display are ceramics. White applies either a cold or hot glaze and makes them appear either as bronzes or other metals.
His sculptures of acquaintances “Kendrick, yogi/guru” (mislabeling of the real spelling of Kedrick) and “Rhonda, yogi/guru” look like classical busts that could easily have been seen as images of a patrician patriarch and his wife.
In other pieces, White distorts features in favor of a moment of intense emotion. The works’ titles, such as “Awe,” “Distortion,” “Secret” and “The Real Scream,” certainly can give you an idea of what to expect. They border on a sense of the grotesque and are indeed over the top in their attempt “to find truth beneath social distortion through individual deep emotional reaction,” White said during an interview.
Gentner, of Wadsworth, has a series of works on canvas with either latex or oil and such things as plastic (as in credit cards), feathers, paper, electrical tape and felt — in order to give dimension to her portrait studies, including classical Greek females. Her piece titled “Gaia” presents a female figure drenched in shades of blues and greens with feathers applied atop the canvas. The technique gives dimension to this representation of the Greek goddess (someone like Mother Earth) who was born out of “chaos” and gave birth to the sea and sky.
Gentner’s works draw the viewer’s eye, as do those of artist Stipe. Like Gentner, Stipe’s works tend toward the female form. In her case, however, she uses fabrics and mixed media to depict the distention and misshaping of the human form.
A free Saturday workshop — “Drawing With Thread” with Bonnie Stipe — will take place July 10 from 1 to 3 p.m. Designed for beginners and experienced participants, the hands-on event will give people a chance to explore their personal creativity, according to exhibit officials. Registration can be made by e-mailing psargent@neo.rr.com.
Gallery hours are Thursdays through Saturdays from noon to 5 p.m. Admission and parking are free. For details, visit www.summitartspace.org.
Roger Durbin is professor emeritus of bibliography at The University of Akron and an avid art enthusiast. To contact him, email r.durbin@sbcglobal.net.
