Ink, Patterns and Humor

Mixed media painter Timothy Cahill and sculptor Nancy Reinker, from Westport and Westin, CT, respectively, join forces at The White Gallery in Lakeville to produce a very strong show, one that deserves some time for observing or maybe a revisit or two.

      Reinker’s work here is primarily ink and acrylic on styrofoam head shapes, much like those used to display hats. Over the stark white of the styrofoam she draws incredibly intricate patterns that suggest both the physical and mental goings-on within, as well as their connections. Her work, which she said “elicits individual reading and interpretation†speaks  to everything from life and death to memory and dream.      

     Cahill’s works often start with a digital print or photograph, which he then paints and draws over, employing chalk, wax, charcoal, watercolor and pencil. Or even pieces of paper, bits of string. You never know. Buried within the whole will often be letters or words, sometimes making “sense,†or maybe not. Over blocks of vibrant colors vigorously slashed across the piece might be drawn shapes or numbers, or crude bodies. Recurring motifs are photo images of the artist’s son, racehorses, movie cameras, neon hotel signs. Among others. The works range from small, relatively simple charcoal line drawings on paper to very large works that incorporate many layers of paint and imagery.

      Cahill, who studied sculpture at Bennington and film at NYU, and now edits commercials, designs Web sites and teaches commercial story boarding at Parsons, pulls from varied artistic experiences, and it shows. “...This shifting from one medium of expression to another creates ambiguity of authenticity, flickering between immediacy and past, self and other, expectation and reality, object and thought,†says his artist’s statement. The result  is almost childlike exuberence and freedom tempered with adult sensibility and self-conscious choice; these are pieces that range the human experience. Including humor: “What I Forgot†is an abstract figure with a big hole where the head might be, painted over what, on closer inspection, proves to be a page from The New York Times Science section. This is an intriguing show. Through Sept. 2. Hours: Wednesday - Sunday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.www.thewhitegallery.com.

      Joie de Livres in Salisbury is showing artists Jennifer Marshall and Andrew Mockler. Mockler’s mostly oils or watercolors on canvas use blocks and stripes of color packed in a proscribed space; they are, as he points out, almost architectural. They contrast nicely with Marshall’s monoprints, with much more fluid shapes (leaves, ferns) which also speak to the structure of the natural world and the play of color within it; her pieces use mostly un-natural colors for her prints. Her watercolors of flowers are in a wholly different way as precise and as much about pattern and form. A selection of wonderful black-and-white photographs shows in the back room. Through the end of August. Hours: Saturday - Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m.; Friday and Monday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.www.info@joiedelivres.com.

      Elsewhere, around and about:

      This is the last weekend to get to the Ober Gallery in Kent for its Summer 2000 print show celebrating the gallery’s first anniversary. With prints from 20-some artists,  the likes of Susan Rothenberg, Elaine de Kooning, Richard Bosman and, yes, a drawing by Matisse, this is a show not to be missed. Through Aug. 16. Hours: Wednesday - Thursday, 1-4 p.m.; Friday - Sunday, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. www.obergallery.com.

     In Salisbury, Marjorie Fales shows work at At Home in the Country through August and Joan Jardine and Jane Zisk show at Chaiwalla Tea House (Wednesday - Sunday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.).  The very family-friendly interactive outdoor display of Shelley Parriott’s “Color Field Structure†continues on the grounds of Noble Horizons through October. Coming up this Friday, Aug. 10, 5-7 p.m. is the artist reception for “Barnyard Beauties,†works by Sonia Halapin, Shauna Shane, Tillie Strauss and Joan Jardine at the Sharon Historical Society, 18 Main St. in Sharon. Hours: Tuesday - Friday, 1-4 p.m.