See How the World Turns in Arteco Gallery's "Wheels" (back)
By Becca Ramspott (Special to the Cumberland Times-News)
The wheel is often cited as one of humankind's oldest and most important inventions. It put the progress of industrialization into motion, with its incorporation into many machines, particularly those that made transportation possible. The wheel is also the key component of some of America's greatest dreams and memories—cars we loved, battles we fought, summers that changed our lives.
Arteco Gallery's "Wheels," on view through July 15, presents an eclectic inventory of how the world of the wheel turns in 10 different artists' imaginations. The show includes photography by Danny Conant, Peter Karp, Bill Merlavage and Doug Schwab; acrylic on canvas by Randall Coleman and Deborah Hicks Odgers; assemblage by Bobbi Kittner; metal by Kenny Braitman and Suzanne Donazetti and stone by Ann Bristow.
With so many different works on view, the exhibition cycles through a variety of ideas. The feathery brushwork of color and faded imagery in Bobbi Kittner's "Driving Through Living," an assemblage of collage, wood and paint, summons the timeless feeling of the windows down and wind—and time—coursing through and around a passenger during a pleasant drive.
Bill Merlavage's images of nighttime amusement parks also provide thoughtful forays into memory. The way Merlavage captures the arrested development of Ferris wheels suspended in time and motion, with their glowing spokes of light at a standstill, is a fitting tribute to another stage of arrested development—summer love, suspended in nostalgia in its fragile perfection.
Danny Conant's prayer wheel pictures present a different rite of passage-the ritual of religion. The diffused image of people in the middle of the simple, practical act of cleaning a component of the ritual of prayer invites thoughts of how the daily presence of religion cleans the soul and gives its devotees a practical grasp on the sometimes disorienting world around them.
Kittner's "Peace Bus" is another nice moment in the exhibition, a colliding commentary on peace and Civil Rights with Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi and other leaders aboard a bus that presents an Index of Evil (perhaps rather than an "Axis of Evil"?) with Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and other countries listed with numbers. Doves and rusty red lines complete the arresting intersection of words, numbers and three-dimensional materials.
The delicate, flower-like thinness of Kenny Braitman's friendly metal sculptures seem to pose the question of the organic versus the industrial in the wheel's history. The "Helix Force" works, in particular, deny their metal origin to stretch skyward in interesting spirals and curves much more akin to plants. One of Braitman's sculptures even includes flowers etched into the surface on each spoke, adding to the feeling of nature and growth versus the speed of progress.
See what spins through your mind while viewing the works in "Wheels" and enjoy sweet treats by Jennifer's Desserts at an artist reception from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday, June 22. The even is free and open to the public. "Wheels" remains on view through July 15.