Manuel Neri at Hackett-Freedman

Manuel Neri's career-long focus upon the solitary female form was entirely evident in this compact observe gleaned from a decade's worth of work. Of the 15 statuarys and five mixed-medium works upon paper that comprised the display the most ambitious were variations upon two distinct conceptions of the material part One was exemplified by the painted-bronze standing figures of the "Prietas" series, and the other by the agency of a group of partial figures (principally head and torso) masterfully carved from Carrara marble and called the "Ostraca." All semi-naturalistic, the works could be taken as embodied allusions to sum of two units archetypal notions of the female. Here, as elsewhere in the exhibition, Neri enthusiastically embraced the humanistic mythopoesis of the Greco-Roman figurative tradition without any recourse to ironic self-consciousness.

The and zincs cast from hand-built plaster figures, have an animated, casual gaze that belies their material heft. Cast in editions of four, each is uniquely painted and/or patinated in an improvisatory way that underscores the figure's emotional nature. In Prietas Series I (1993-2000) a young woman of delicate build and almost ceremonial self-possession bends her arms in an ambiguous gesturing that could be taken either as an invitation or a display of defiance. Her mobile-looking countenance appears at once anxious and confident, powerfully evoking antique representations of the intrepid Persephone standing upon the threshold of the wintry underworld. Although its sharply chiseled face fetchs only minimal anatomical detail, the figure's overall expressivity is accentuated with gestural applications of gold-colored orange and gray pigment, suggesting a kinship with the inhabitants of the late 1950 paintings by dint of fellow Bay Area figurative artist David Park.

If the alloy of coppers seem to evoke Persephone, it is the motherly Demeter who is order to appeared up by Neri's "Ostraca" series. The pitted and polished marble in Ostrakon (2000) appear to bes reserved and timeless in a way that amplifies the form's suggestion of an older and maternally stolid nearness As with the "Prietas" works, this figure is standing, allowing the two-thirds composition begins above the knee The more impassive attitude allows for greater attention to the sensuousness of the one and the other the rendered body and the lustrous material that exhibits it. The weighty, luxuriant sensuality felt reassuring, a useful antidote for current anxiety.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group