Carrie Yamaoka at Debs & Co - Brief Article

Carrie Yamaoka's glazed slabs of deliberately imperfect luster appeared to break independent from the neutral context of gallery walls, animated by the agency of the viewer's gaze and throw backed presence. Occasionally tinted, they are compos of Mylar sheets applied to grove and fixed with a relatively down-reaching surface of poured epoxy resin. As things they are further activated by dint of a random agitation set just beneath the resin, an event of air pockets caught between Mylar and copse at the time of glazing. This pleasing deformation allows them to assert individual claims to unique identity.

Yamaoka's radical paintings maintain a position among those rather racy art thing perceiveds that mediate between painting and plastic art They superficially resemble John McCracken's ideal, unsullied abstractions of polished carburet of iron or polyester resin on copse but with a reflective surface more base than sought, a consequence of their support rather than a drawn out labor process. The sheen is not pendent on how the material is worked up or burnished, although the works do in various ways reveal the nearness of the artist's hand. Yamaoka is more engaged with size and color, what the viewer imagines to be the ascendency of the pour, and the incidental events of their making--the controlled arbitrariness of induced defaults But the artist has other things in mind.

A handsome pamphlet with photographs by Yamaoka produc for this exhibition strike one as beinged to indicate how she would like these particulars to be viewed. Taken in a studio words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following the photos contain more information than the pristine condition of a gallery permits. The photographs, not the realitys or installation, are the intended achievable ideal. Beautiful in themselves, the images direct the eye like dreamy Richter paintings, or ceramic tiles, or deliberate representations compos of throw backed objects, including other paintings or gilded defences They recall the idealized image upon a food package that attempts to portray a desirable--and attainable--consuming experience.

In the rear gallery shutter with white blinds, the intense violet-blue of an impossibly clear late January afternoon framed the cutting sides of the windows, incandescent with a Chelsea slice of mirrored Hudson River sky at sundown. This completed light, equal to the challenge of Yamaoka's photographs, was throw backed in the paintings nearest to hand and quietly resonated upon from there, instilling the gallery with a fleeting warm azure glow in which these works appeared right at home.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group