Linda Atkinson, “Housebound” (Zenith Gallery)
SHOWS AT ZENITH GALLERY ARE MERE RIPPLES in the ocean of art that fills the jam-packed venue. That’s especially true of the current “48th Anniversary Exhibition,” which contains work by about 60 artists. Many of these will be familiar to Zenith regulars, and some pieces are still in place from last month’s Black-history show.
Fittingly, one of the highlights is a picture of a gallery — the National one, rendered by Bradley Stevens with his customary fastidiousness. The painting is named for another painting depicted within it: “The Prodigal Son,” by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.
“Prodigal Son” by Bradley Stevens
Stevens’s neoclassical style is welcome at Zenith, but not typical of the gallery’s fare. The current selection includes lots of sculptures, and several paintings that verge on sculpture. Among the intriguing smaller pieces are a half dozen house-shaped wooden blocks by Linda Atkinson. While most of them are painted, the most striking is a mahogany mini-mansion bound in twine that appears to be cutting into it. The sculpture is powerful as a metaphor of confinement, and also as a subversion of its materials’s innate qualities.
“Winter Trees” diptych by Ronni Jolles
Wood is impersonated by paper in Roni Jolles’s diptych of a grove of birch trees, some of which are 3D and placed literally in the foreground. Only slightly flatter is Carolyn Goodridge’s luminous encaustic painting of a cosmic orb whose surface is traced by a beautiful green corona. The picture fits well with Patricia Skinner’s lush pastel of a near-eclipse, whose complex texture is partly due to its rendering on sandpaper; and a characteristically fluid Anne Marchand painting that’s purely abstract but includes a translucent white orb that could be a moon. All these pictures are in Zenith’s basement, but are looking at the stars.
“The Power of Soul” by Carolyn Goodridge | “Near Totality” by Patricia Skinner | “Reign” by Anne Marchand
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