Desobry’s Waverly Avenue Gallery present is actually titled “Circles,” however the energetic black-and-white drawings largely middle on tough ovals, rendered freehand in charcoal. At Glen Echo Park’s Park View Gallery, Winslow’s “The Artwork of Attachment” gives elegant prints during which coloured ribbons and strings appear to overlap and intersect, and typically collide with patterns made by snatches of lace.
The shapes in Desobry’s footage are closely labored and sometimes consequence from a number of, practically concentric loops that partially align. The rounded shapes within the compositions often stand alone however sometimes seem in threes. They’re largely outlined by black strains and contained by fields of grey, whether or not cleanly utilized or exuberantly heathered. But the artist typically makes efficient use of white, leaving areas empty to distinction the fevered charcoal strokes or utilizing black and grey to outline an space of white as a luminous halo. The open areas add to the sense that these dense footage are as a lot excavated as constructed.
The artist’s assertion cites psychologist Jan Souman’s concept that “little errors within the mind add up till the sense of what’s straight turns into one thing spherical. He says that’s why we are inclined to stroll in circles once we are misplaced.” One image, “Realizing,” is probably not instantly impressed by Souman’s remarks, but it surely’s simply seen as depicting brainlike grey matter inside an egg-shaped skull. Even when it appears to be drawing spontaneously, the hand is guided by the pinnacle.
Airier and extra colourful than Desobry’s drawings, Winslow’s display prints overlay curving bands in methods that may seem both balletic or tangled. The artist achieves this impact by dropping strands of a comfortable materials onto an publicity unit, which makes use of ultraviolet mild to repair an emulsion onto a template for printing. A number of templates are printed in numerous colours to construct the ultimate picture on a white background.
The hues have a tendency towards pastels, however Winslow does make use of black. One print enmeshes unfurled grey and black strips with white ones that look to be on high. The phantasm of depth isn’t immersive, however these prints are clearly layered. They each open and block the doable routes to their interiors.
Though Winslow’s kinds usually venture over one another, they don’t seem to be actually entwined. Certainly, the artist sees her “Attachment” prints as illustrating the Buddhist precept of non-attachment. She quotes Zen monk Thích Nhât Hanh’s educating that, “If, in our coronary heart, we nonetheless cling to something — anger, nervousness, or possessions — we can’t be free.” It’s not doable, in fact, to tug any particular person strains out of Winslow’s prints. However it’s important that they’re merely overlapping, and never really tethered.
Geoff Desobry: Circles By means of March 30 at Waverly Avenue Gallery, 4600 East-West Freeway, Bethesda. waverlystreetgallery.com. 301-951-9441.
The Artwork of Attachment: Screenprints by Clare Winslow By means of March 24 at Park View Gallery, Glen Echo Park, 7300 MacArthur Blvd., Glen Echo. glenechopark.org/parkviewgallery. 301-634-2222.
After 16 years in Los Angeles, February James has returned to her hometown, a transfer marked by a present of work and sculptures, “Homecoming (I’m Coming House).” In honor of her childhood, James has outfitted Cultural DC’s Cellular Artwork Gallery to evoke a D.C. faculty, with a tiled ground and partitions that appear to be blackboards, full with phrases and easy drawings rendered in white marks. (One sketch depicts mumbo sauce, an area staple.) The gallery, a repurposed transport container, is presently positioned so its doorway faces the doorway of the close by Rubell Museum DC, the place a number of extra of James’s work are on exhibit.
Most of James’s artworks depict Black girls in a mode that’s concurrently nostalgic and eerie; her portraits are often described as specializing in an individual’s “essence” over “physicality.” A sequence of white-painted plaster heads hooked up to tough picket plinths contains one which’s set off by dangling strands of copper disks that recommend each braids and lavish earrings. A portray of the faces of three girls, “I’m Afraid however at Least I’m Dwelling,” options ghostly pallors and reddish eyes.
There’s nothing glamorous about James’s girls, which is attention-grabbing, since she used to help herself as a showbiz make-up artist. However she does pay shut consideration to pores and skin tones, which she renders by mixing various supplies, together with acrylic, watercolor, oil, ink, pastel and charcoal. The outcomes are each watery and chalky and fascinatingly complicated. Whereas her topics are completely flat, their flesh is richly textured, hinting at depths of reminiscence and character.
February James: Homecoming (I’m Coming House) By means of March 24 at Cultural DC Cellular Artwork Gallery, Randall Recreation Middle, 820 S. Capitol St. SW. culturaldc.org. 202-204-7800.
African Artwork Beats’ present present marks the gallery’s fifth anniversary, however the organizing precept isn’t chronological. As an alternative, the work of eight western African and two Haitian artists is organized by 4 themes: spirituality, private development, human connection and environmentalism.
The latter class contains among the most placing works. Gérard Gabayen’s “Animal Kingdom I” suggests an animal’s head with daring black strokes, which dominate background textual content in Wolof in regards to the destruction of the forest. Bienvenue Fotso Gunsi’s sensible however elegantly stylized work depict such vegetation as trifolium, which some imagine has medicinal worth.
As a gallery notice concedes, typically the themes blur into one another. Camille Tété Azankpo’s “The Couple” portrays a human connection, however the home portrait was assembled from metallic fuel canisters minimize into shards, a method with ecological implications. And whereas Yao Fofo Sewonou’s portray of a lady at a piano is listed within the personal-growth part, the woman has the pinnacle of a fish, which nudges the image right into a surrealist area of interest all of the artist’s personal. The tales they inform could also be intertwined, however every of the present’s contributors reveals a singular voice.
Intertwined Narratives By means of March 29 at African Artwork Beats, 3501 Lowell St. NW. africanartbeats.com. 202-766-2608.
