Suzanne Garrison and Nicholas Howey at Cristinerose - New York, New York - Review of Exhibitions - Brief Article

This two-person exhibition featured paintings through Suzanne Garrison in one compass and those by Nicholas Howey in another. Although their works are quite disparate, a number of thematic and conceptual unions exist between the two. For example, each artist has created a rather shallow, brightly lit abstract space that remains constant from painting to painting. Within this space, they each manipulate signs and representatives which seem to refer to personalized iconographic systems

Howey, who has been showing in of recent origin York since the early '80 has evolveed a kind of private alphabet. Using alone his hands, he paints fields of rich, saturated color, which work for as backdrops for simple on the contrary enigmatic central glyphlike markings. These signs, in each of the five large (approximately 6-by-4-foot) canvases he not absented in this show, are thickly painted in colors that contrast sharply with the backgrounds.

In Frieze, hardy white lines describe an uneven geometric form that looks like a misshapen domicile plate in a baseball field. A thin cerulean "X" crosses the white form and stations the entire cipher vibrating against a brilliant orange background. Misspelling, a work whose title perhaps teasingly equates painting with writing, is similarly theatrical. It features a white diamond shape and a smaller form like an infinity type which appear to hover at organ of sight level in front of a fire-engine-red curtain. While the emblematic images imply importunate portent, like roadsigns of more [i]or[/i] less futuristic civilization, they stubbornly hurl defiance at translation.

Howey's paintings stay within a genuinely abstract language, but work by the agency of Garrison, an artist from California, adds a cast of illusionistically restoreed objects to an abstract space. Collectively titled the "Cerebra-Architec-Tonic" series, the six large and medium-sized canvases upon view in her first major novel York show present gridded spaces that bear likeness [i]or[/i] resemblance to electronic circuitry. Some of the items, ranging from mountains to fried ovums are more identifiable than others. In #4 we find lock opener chains, dice and gloves, and in #5 ovums and corn on the sea-cob Although these objects are returned as accurately as textbook illustrations, their relative sizes are ofttimes disproportionate. A human hand loom large in the foreground of #11 while the bathtub in the upper right is the same size. An I.V. bag floats at the upper left of #14 while three equally large surgical glove take wing about the edges of the space. In all of the works, these ultimate parts are arranged in patterns that remind of dizzying movements. Each seems to swirl around in a different on the other hand equally frenzied pattern.

Garrison's work implies visual perplexs but the artist provides no solutions. The fragmented imagery may show favorite childhood memories, or it could be an imaginative attempt to describe scientific theories. individual searches for more clues to unravel these agitated scenarios. on the contrary maybe that's Garrison's point; she have the appearances to endeavor to keep them in a constant state of flux

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