Eccentric and Alive, Pipe Cleaner Sculptures Free the Imagination

By Erin Goodwin-Guerrero

Once again, Ted Fullwood lives up to his wonderful capacity to amaze and delight. Although I have only seen his work in an occasional group show in recent years, he is never far from my mind. Among original and creative people in Silicon Valley, Ted Fullwood is always right at the top of my list.

Fullwood’s Energy Machines filled the Cardinale Project Room at San Jose ICA.

Fullwood’s fans have been waiting for this new body of work to appear and were not disappointed the evening of February 5, when Energy Machines were unveiled at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art. Many gallery visitors reported that the crowd surrounding the work made it impossible to see the installation and they were resigned to come back on another day to get a glimpse of the works sporting such titles as Oxcavator, Dialator, Rejuvenator, Reciprocator and Yellow Retort.

(more…)

articles | Comments Off

A COMPASSION AND CALM IN THE FACE OF THE LARGER SCHEME OF THINGS

By Erin Goodwin-Guerrero

In a show that includes drawing and a variety of graphic processes, Robynn Smith reveals her technical diversity and amplifies our view of her narrative concerns. Her prints revisit some of the familiar translucent coloration, images of raw nature and scenes of a female figure with her dog on the beach that we know from other recent exhibitions. New are surprising drawings that incorporate a windstorm at a worlds fair, a WWI gas mask and a print with images of the garment district of New York. The range of references seems so broad that the viewer struggles at first to find the connecting thread. Yet there is a point of view and a worldview expounded in Smith’s work.

Robynn Smith’s photopolymer etching, Coiled and Ready

Without rancor, Smith acknowledges the fragility and vulnerability of the human experience. Through references to such astounding events as a volcanic eruption, a world war, 9/11, loss of world habitat or the Holocaust she reminds us of the brevity of life, devastating shifts that can alter life for survivors forever and even the remarkable ability of life to persevere. There is humility in the beauty that Smith is able to attribute to situations that should be upending, but are indeed part of the larger and longer adventure of evolution, trial and error of life forms, and movement of planet earth in concert with the universe.

(more…)

articles | Comments Off