Unhooked from Time

continued

Natural time versus human time is the real theme of the exhibition, and most of the works stand somewhere between the two. Brent Fogt's Oak turns geometry into a tree. It's made up entirely of small hatch marks grouped in polygonal clusters. The result is a representation of a giant oak tree, also on Mylar, that wonderfully demonstrates the painstaking amount of time such a process must have taken. Mixed media works by Jennilie Brewster such as Nucleat and Bomb capture notions of apocalyptic time splendidly with their dramatic scribbling, layered surfaces, and punctures. Renata Palubinskas's beautiful oil on board miniature, Girl with Bird, catches a young woman's moment of calm under rays of celestial light and resonates with a sense of timelessness no other work on display equals.

Of the several video works in the exhibit, Chris Koelsch's satirical take on immortality, via an outdated informational video complete with tacky Muzak and clunky editing, is the most memorable. Be sure to walk past the videos in the basement to see Meghan Reynard's Tunnels. Composed of mirror-lined wooden boxes with illuminated objects inside them, the light-shapes seem to recede infinitely into the floor. It's a pity they are not displayed more prominently. They are wonderful and represent the high point in this timely exhibition.   

[Originally published in May, 2011.]