Art Relish » Atlanta visual art news, calendar and directory

By Daniel Walden

Twinhouse Gallery at 2815 Peachtree Road is hosting a show called Trifecta, which includes the work of Atlanta artists Jeff Cohen, Karen Hollingsworth and Neil Hollingsworth. Twinhouse’s storefront windows announce that they deal with “contemporary and classical realism.” This becomes evident as you scan the works in the window and see Neil Hollingsworth’s Cherry Can and Jeff Cohen’s Sky Candy. Both paintings are absolutely enjoyable but Sky Candy, which pictures a red and white checkered water tower at dusk or dawn, along with the majority of Cohen’s other works, has an extra twist that sets it apart from the others. “Elements” seem to be the key “element” of Cohen’s paintings. For example, Sky Candy, at 36″ x 42″, is made up of 42 evenly sized square blocks. The painting almost seems to be a 3D puzzle assembled for the viewer’s pleasure. The colors of the sky and background do not match up seamlessly, revealing the different blocks used in forming the whole painting.

Cohen carries this theme throughout his works and even mixes it up a bit. In Very Salty, a 48″ x 48″ painting of a salt shaker, he breaks some of the small squares into even smaller squares. The result is a painting that seems almost pixilated yet the salt shaker is very clear and realistic. Water towers, bicycles, salt shakers, farmland and flowers all serve as Cohen’s extremely well done subjects. They all have a very similar style, not meaning they all look the same, but that the artist’s work is very consistent.

Between the works of both Karen and Neil Hollingsworth there are some nice still life paintings but their work doesn’t have the same contemporary feeling of Cohen’s joined blocks concept. However, notable pieces are Neil Hollingsworth’s rightfully titled Cherry Can, a painting of cherries stacked atop one another inside of a tin can. Bread Bag and Sliced Bread No. 2 both show an excellent portrayal of bread inside of a plastic bag. The way Hollingsworth captured the light hitting the plastic of the bag is to be commended. Karen Hollingsworth also paints still life paintings, with the works in this show focusing on windows with an ocean view. The way she captures a gentle ocean breeze blowing the curtains through an open window is notable. Her use of soft colors and subject matter ties her pieces together.

While the works of the Trifecta artists are all indeed pleasing to look at, there is another artist whose work is worthy of the trip to the gallery. The artwork of Elizabeth Stockton is shown in the Twinhouse gallery but not in the Trifecta show. Stockton’s work is mostly square in format with calming color palettes. Waterways, nature and openness are common themes in her pieces. She breaks the works into waterways and grass on the bottom quarter of the painting and donates the rest of her canvases to representing the sky. In a couple pieces she represents clouds but for the most part her skies are nice washes of color. Depending on the time of day depicted, the sky may consist of nice palettes of blue, gray even olive and beige. Creation is a perfect example of the square canvas being used by Stockton to paint her waterways and open sky. Many of her pieces are square in format but not all. The gallery did a nice job of hanging her works together making a grid like installation with her multiple square and rectangular pieces.

There are many pieces in the gallery that make a trip to the show worth it. The works of Elizabeth Stockton and Jeff Cohen are alone worthy of a trip to gallery. The work of each artist can be seen in the respective artist’s style yet the work is not at all boring. This work is fresh, pleasing and very worth seeing. The Twinhouse gallery is definitely a place for contemporary and classical realism.

Trifecta runs through March 20.

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Picture and words by Chilly

A continuing quest for adventure has taken Tyler Kline through towns home to various klansmen and drunks, militant lesbians and nouveau riche settlers. He and his family currently call Philadelphia home, where he enjoys the confluence of various urban stimuli: the song of the CSX engines grinding steel on rail, the streamlined rhythmical rowers piercing the river, the inherent history of America’s first capital currently filled with working class neighborhoods. A place where even sinister street characters seem too ambitious to panhandle.

He sees the entire spectrum of visual art there for him to draw inspiration: from the earliest cave painters, through the European masters, to guerilla work being done on the 21st century street. “When I paint on a wall, that’s where I get my strength from,” says Kline, acknowledging that this hints at ritual magic, but also that sometimes things need to be kept unspoken. In his search through various mediums, he seeks out that which will tap into an ancestral lineage of craftsmen, finding what his hands already know how to do. Coaxing intuition into our concrete world, exploring the brutality of fact and aesthetic truths. Dexterity is also very much a part of Kline’s character, from the illustration of various found canvases to aerodynamics on a skateboard. In his work he is simultaneously very sincere, but also “at play,” while never straying from a solid work ethic.

Kline’s current show, “Nonesuch,” is at Youngblood Gallery in Atlanta through November.

Click for an audio interview with the artist (MP3 — opens in new window)

Chilly is a traveller, raconteur and workingman currently based in Atlanta.

by Rebecca Stern

Allan deSouza has incorporated a variety of differing tools in his photography/mixed media. His lecture Rituals in Transfigured Time, presented at Savannah College of Art and Design-Atlanta on October 3, showcased many different series of his works. DeSouza described both the techniques he used as well as more in-depth interpretations that focused on the unwritten histories hidden in the images.

His series Threshold includes 24 images of airports, train and bus stations. The series focused on waiting areas and transitions between places in time where one has left behind the familiar, but has not yet arrived at the new venue. DeSouza mentioned that he wanted the viewers to imagine a first encounter with a new place and how they might emotionally engage with the physical space presented. The goal of the work is to demonstrate the promise of the West and this goal is achievable if we use Orientalism as the primary interpretation tool.

Orientalism can be loosely defined as the study of Far Eastern cultures by Westerners. Edward Said calls into question the very definition of Orientalism by pondering this fundamental assumption. “The interpreter’s mind actively makes a place in it for a foreign Other. And this creative making of a place for works that are otherwise alien and distant is the most important facet of the interpreter’s mission.” (Said, Orientalism, 25 Years Later, 2003) DeSouza’s artwork tries to show the relation between the East and West in his subtle imagery.

In his series In search of divine, deSouza searches for the hidden essence of a divine presence in the mundane components of ordinary existence. He relies on the viewer to ask, “What am I looking at?” and anticipates that the viewer will be capable of seeing beyond the ordinary and approach the divine essence present in the objects. In many of his photographs, deSouza’s own body provides the key elements - blood, hair, earwax, toenails and fingernails - and challenges the viewer to see behind the physical reality of these objects.

DeSouza uses these materials because they are organic and will eventually decompose, decay and disintegrate. He creates spaces that might look epic and immense, yet are really the opposite. He asks, “What does it mean to the viewer to be confronted with a landscape that is made out of blood?” Using his shavings, his bodily fluids and discarded parts acts as a form of cleansing and purification for him, yet might be dirty and contaminating for another. Perhaps this technique enables him to focus on the differences in the perceptions and appearances of the body in the various geographic locales of his images. Our social space is marked by the way we move within it. DeSouza elaborates on the process of the movement.

A video interview with the artist is here.

Stern is an MFA candidate in photography at SCAD-Atlanta.