Victoria Palermo: RAUM at John Davis Gallery (and other Hudson shows)

cant and wont - platinum cured silicone rubber

Here's a heads-up for serious followers of contemporary art: There's less than a week left to see the exhibition Victoria Palermo: RAUM at John Davis Gallery in Hudson, and you don't want to miss it. If Palermo is new to you, this is as good a time as any to start following her work; or if, like me, you've followed her career for decades, you will be deeply gratified to see this amazing new work.

Palermo (no relation to Blinky), has always worked intimately with color - painted onto found sticks, poured onto paper from a nail-polish bottle, printed in patterns like wallpaper or, in this case, infused into the jellylike body of sheets of pure silicone rubber. Equally, Palermo works with form - her work relates to abstract approaches, but never completely leaves the referential realm - and she is as much a designer as she is an artist. In other words, she has always carefully constructed her pieces, even though there is also a degree of expressive freedom in them.

more or less

The earliest pieces I know of hers verged on expressionism; this new work, instead, pulls from the purity of Modernist architecture to develop miniature worlds of space and light - and, of course, color. Her nine freestanding works in this show are all on the scale of a model, and are presented near eye level on pristine stands crafted of white panels set on top of galvanized steel legs.

This elevated point of view is effective, helping us to get in close and experience the little spaces from inside and out. Moving around them, their varying degrees of transparency and translucency create ever-changing blends of color. One can also imagine that different lighting, especially the cycle of natural light through a day, would add to this engaging process.

Like many artists today, Palermo gives her works curious titles that, like the pieces themselves, hover between the literal and the fantastic, such as no beginning no middle no end, and cant and wont (apostrophes purposely missing). Some of the titles are more playful, as are some of the pieces they label, like bookish, plaidish, and in candyland. Speaking of candy, this work tantalizes the sense of taste by closely resembling jelly candies (I'm waiting for one to be titled Turkish delight); forget the nearly irresistible temptation to touch these gooey, wiggly structures - you'll struggle with the temptation to take a bite.

domino theory

In addition to the sculptures, Palermo has created a number of relief pieces in the same material that are mounted in frames under glass, an effective and less expensive alternative approach that retains the physical fascination of the other work but lacks the changeability of the full-round pieces (one is shown at left); the show also includes a few acrylics on paper that read more or less as sketches of architectural ideas related to the sculptures.

Take note: Victoria Palermo: RAUM ends on Sunday, Dec. 4. The gallery is open Thursday to Monday from noon to 5 p.m.

Rating: Must See


Also showing in Hudson (through Dec. 11) is a five-woman collection playfully dubbed Hudson River School of Women at Carrie Haddad Gallery. Haddad's annual landscape show has no surprises, but this is a worthy showcase of regular gallery artists who are all very good painters of landscape themes (the tongue-in-cheek title does not announce any real school here).

Jane Bloodgood-Abrams (an untitled piece of hers is shown at right) comes closest to the Hudson River School style, in that she favors mystical skies and sunsets; her larger paintings are rather misty (which may bother others like me who don't see as clearly as they used to), while the smaller ones virtually glow from within.

Juliet Teng works in a style that recalls the great American painter Wolf Kahn; like his, her treed landscapes are recognizable but stretch the boundaries of natural color to interesting places (a piece of hers is shown below). Similarly, Tracy Helgeson sometimes reverses color from sky to ground to trees, but Helgeson's palette is narrower than Teng's, relying largely on neon pinks and reds, where Teng ranges through the whole spectrum.

Perhaps the most intriguing of this group is Laura Von Rosk, whose style over the years remains consistent, but who grows subtly stronger over time (or else I am growing subtly more receptive to her style over time). These small, intensely hued and highly polished works on panel play a little game with viewers, by representing sweet, folk-artish fantasy landscapes in all seasons, but always clearly referencing strong female forms in mounds and V-shapes. Also represented in the show, by just two large, textured paintings of birches, is Susan Stillman.

Rating: Recommended

Pink Trees - oil on canvas by Juliet Teng

Another fine show in Hudson is a retrospective of works on paper by D. Jack Solomon at the Hudson Opera House, a nice public space in the open central foyer of a large performing arts center. I have written at length about Solomon's work here, so these comments will be brief - suffice it to say that this selection of 25 years' production is a very fine representation of the artist's evolving styles.

Comprising samples from several large bodies of work dating from 1986 to 2011, 25 Years in the Hudson Valley - On Paper offers some wonderful surprises even to those of us who already know him, and firmly supports my opinion that Solomon is one of the area's most important painters. The show runs through Dec. 10; the gallery is open daily from noon to 5 p.m.

Rating: Highly Recommended

Restoration - mixed media on paper mounted on wood by D. Jack Solomon

Are We Having Art Yet? Bill Griffith at BCB Art

Irreverent, absurd, existentialist - Bill Griffith’s Zippy the Pinhead embodies these traits as only a character born out of the San Francisco underground comics scene of the 1970s could. Yet in 2011 he is going stronger than ever, in syndication to about 200 daily newspapers, out in a new book, and now appearing in an inspired exhibition at BCB Art in Hudson.

Titled Are We Having Art Yet? Selected Drawings 1978-2011, the show presents numerous original inked versions of daily strips, several inked originals of a 1990 Zippy calendar, a few pencil renderings of early Zippy covers, and signed inkjet prints of other Zippy material. All the work on the walls is in ink or pencil – i.e. no color – and was, of course, created for reproduction, so it has that special quality of blacks and whites, of hatching and cross-hatching, that gives all graphic art a certain eye-appeal.

But, rather than let the monotony of monochrome get overwhelming, Bruce Bergmann, the gallery’s owner, has placed most of the work along a bright yellow rail, backed by a garish band of the same yellow with a pattern of big, red polka dots. The design scheme is taken from Zip’s costume, but it also imparts a properly carnivalesque atmosphere to the exhibition. Yes, it says, you may be in an art gallery, but you don’t need to take anything too seriously here.

An art calendar drawing by Bill Griffith

As these are comic strips, naturally the show is a hoot; but what makes it really special is that all the strips are specifically art-related. It is certainly a comic fan’s delight – but it is also an art critic’s paradise. Griffith went to art school and attempted a career as a painter before stumbling into comics in 1969, and he loves to send up the posturing of serious artists and pundits. Jokes about Picasso, Giacometti, Pollock and Magritte here coexist with jokes about Ingres, DaVinci, ancient Greece and cave art.

With the irrepressibly idiotic Zippy as his guide, Griffith has no fear, and the results are hilarious.

For most, including myself, Zippy is an acquired taste. His bizarre appearance, politically incorrect moniker and – above all – chronically off-the-wall pronouncements are not going to be for everybody, even those of us who are used to edgy stuff. But he grows on you – his sweetness, his persistence, his inability to grasp basic reality – it all adds up to irresistible charm.

Whether you like the humor or not (and in the case of these strips, it helps to be conflicted about modern art), seen up close in the original, the drawings show that Griffith is no pretender – he’s got the chops to draw anything well, and he’s got the graphic sense to know what to draw and what to leave out. It’s clear, crisp communication.

While much of the work is simplified, and much of the content goes in the direction of one-liners, some of these drawings also have a great deal of complexity built in, and with lengthy perusal will yield new secrets. Mostly, though, it’s about the humor of absurdity and, in this particular selection, the absurdity of the art world. Which works real well for me.

Rating: Highly Recommended

Hudson Galleries

I've missed some important exhibitions this summer in Hudson, but I'm happy to say several really good ones are showing there currently, so it's anything but too late to take advantage of the remainder of the summer season in this regional art mecca.

First up (beginning with what will end soonest and going on from there) is a fine display of large-format color photographs by Victoria Sambunaris at Nicole Fiacco Gallery. The pictures are direct responses to 19th-century Western landscape photographs, updated by being in color, but otherwise only different in scale than the sort of works they pay homage to.

However, while the spirit of this work is similar to the geological-survey work of the past, these changes in scale and color do a lot to change the overall effect. Sambunaris has a knack for choosing scenes that include physically tiny details that reveal 21st-century truths, nearly hidden though they may be in the eye-pleasing atmospherics of these big, smooth prints.

The work is savvy and expertly crafted. As in most Fiacco exhibitions, the presentation is almost too spare, with just seven images spread around the big, white box of a room. Also on view in the more intimate upstairs space are several unframed ink drawings by Troy artist Gina Occhiogrosso, titled The Road. Both exhibitions run through Sept. 4.

John Davis Gallery is featuring Caroline Ramersdorfer, an international sculptor with local ties, along with several other gallery artists in the four-story rear carriage house space. Ramersdorfer often works on a monumental scale (well documented in wall panels on view in the gallery), and the gallery's ample courtyard accomodates one such piece; however, the rest of the work on view is modest in size, and some of it is notably tiny.

If you thought that contemporary artists no longer carve marble, this show will be an eye-opener. Ramersdorfer's work, however, does not look backward. Neither does it present objects meant to be walked around and admired in the traditional way of three-dimensional carvings. Rather, most of the pieces in this show depend on the viewer's willingness to look through their multiple layers from a certain point of view, from which they tend to take on an almost illusionistic degree of depth and complexity.

Ramersdorfer's forms are abstract, though they could be understood to represent microscopic visions of organic or chemical materials, and they play with a nice variety of the textures that a medium like marble can take on, as well as some translucency. A couple of the smaller pieces are executed in wood (natural or painted), which works well enough as a study ("maquette" to some), but did not impart the same feeling as the completed stone carvings.

If you go to Davis, be sure to check out all four floors of the carriage house, a marvelously old and crusty structure, which serves well to display drawings by Constance Jacobsen, paintings by Farrell Brickhouse and Lois Borgenicht, sculptures by John van Alstine and Jon Isherwood, and a giant banner of an installation by Sam Sebren. It all ends on Sept. 12.

The most important show in Hudson right now, and probably one of the more significant shows to be mounted there in some time, is a retrospective of Edward Avedisian at Carrie Haddad Gallery through Sept. 19. It's almost unheard of for Haddad to devote the entire main floor of her gallery to just one artist, but in this case it makes a lot of sense, because the Avedisian we see there is at least three artists all by himself.

There is the master of color-field stripes in the front room, the smearer and splatterer in the middle, and the almost Pop-style renderer of domestic interiors and exteriors in the back. For me, Avedisian's stripe paintings are irresistibly beautiful and yet transcendent, making the other abstracts seem cloddish in comparison; meanwhile, the representational paintings are extremely competent and were, apparently, necessary for the artist as he transitioned from New York City life to sleepy Hudson in the '70s.

This is truly a must-see exhibition on the level of the finest galleries and museums anywhere. Avedisian, who was once a very sought-after guy on the New York art scene, left all that behind - not to work quietly in the country while maintaining a city presence, but to cut himself off from it - and the quality of many of these paintings (dating from 1960 to 2003) clearly demonstrates that he had the stuff if he had wanted to remain.

Instead, he melted into near-obscurity, then died in 2007, leaving behind a very impressive legacy we are lucky to have a chance to see before collectors disperse it all.

Carrie Haddad Photographs is also breaking from tradition with the inclusion of a painter, Lionel Gilbert, in the lineup of three artists on view through Sept. 26. This experiment succeeds (unless you have a problem with a gallery that has the word photographs in its title showing traditional paintings), largely because the two photographers, Kim McLean and Harry Wilks, though quite different from each other, both take a decidedly painterly approach.

The focus is on McLean, a voraciously inventive and ambitious maker of extremely detailed digital constructs that, though they use some photographic source material, really read more as paintings. They refer both directly and indirectly to major historical photographs, while evoking the lighting, techniques, and surfaces of more recent media such as CGI films and video games.

I've never been a huge fan of the created photographic image, and I find the artificiality of McLean's work somewhat tedious (though I have no doubt many others find it endlessly fascinating). But I have to admit that his exuberance is catchy, and his colors are simply gorgeous, even when muted to a nearly monochromatic palette in certain strong examples.

The more understated, but still pretty wild prints by Wilks (example above left), and the vintage modernist oils by Gilbert (example below) are also well worth seeing, though I wish there were a bigger selection of Wilks' work.

Another show worth checking out (though I missed it on my visit), features paintings by Frank Cressotti and Barbara Friedman at BCB Art through Sept. 19.

Hudson Galleries

Spring was in the air, and a nice walk for the whole length of Warren Street in Hudson yielded the expected treasure from the region's most concentrated collection of art galleries.

Karen and I went to help a friend celebrate her part in a show, took in others that were having events and openings, and topped it off with a superb dinner at Ca' Mea, where Massimiliano greeted us warmly and invited us to visit him at his other eatery in Cortona, Italy, if we were ever in the neighborhood. For the food, in this case, no need to go to Cortona!

So, on to the art. First up, a collection of four painters presented as View Four, on exhibit through March 20 at Nicole Fiacco Gallery, whose pristine white cube of a room is probably the most perfect exhibition space anywhere north of New York City outside of a museum. The four painters - Robert Roane Beard, Stephen Courbois, Jeanette Fintz, and Enrique Kico Govantes - naturally are arrayed one on each wall, but with almost too much white space to go around and an annoying (for me) total lack of labeling.

Though they are shown in the same exhibition, the connections among them are a bit vague, centering on color and geometric pattern as methodic foci. Taken individually, I was most impressed by Fintz, whose modestly-sized acrylic triptych on wood panels and much bigger pair of acrylics on canvas played a complicated call-and-response. With shapes derived from a systematic application of the circle and hexagon, played out in a bottomless-well of expressiveness, Fintz applied challenging palettes of blue, green, and pink in one large piece called Andalusian Shards #2 (shown at top of post); staring at it is a bit like falling into the sky.

Also inspired by nature - including the human kind - are the four seasonal squares by Govantes (Winter, Karen's favorite, is shown at right; Summer is shown above). I like the energetic brushwork, the strong color shifts, and how Govantes strikes a balance just midway between abstract and figurative. Though it's a clichè to reference the seasons, he does it extremely well - look at the way Summer vibrates and you feel its heat.

Beard's work is directly taken from landscape, some Irish, some Columbia Countyish, and he does it on a very small scale - no bigger than about 5 by 7 inches (one is shown at left). His skill and style are easy to like, but the work seemed a bit frivolous to me, reminiscent of the once-overly popular graphic artist Folon.

Courbois is somewhat the odd man out in this group: His extremely dry approach to an exploration of muted colors in repeated shapes is quintessential Modernism (which is to say early 20th century). Not properly referred to as a painter, he employs a very subtle technique similar to chin collè printmaking to make contemplative constructions like the one shown here.

This is the kind of work that only serious art lovers can really get much out of - a narrowly focused theme-and-variation that you must really work to appreciate. I'm not lazy, but I prefer artwork that reaches out more ardently to the audience.

That would be a fair way to describe much of what has been brought together for the annual Painted Cities exhibition at Carrie Haddad Gallery, on view through April 11. This year's edition of the show is bristling with positive energy and some very fresh work, including lush "drawings" by Paul Chojnowski that are made from nothing more than water and fire (the one shown at right is titled Evening on the Avenue).

Other highlights include a savvy, atmospheric view of Troy's industrial waterfront by Tony Thompson; Staats Fasoldt's masterful little watercolors; and a group of painted moments by Judith Wyer that evoke great street photography - not by dint of excessive realism but by their skillful observation and cropping (the one shown at left is titled Pedestrian).

An even more popular approach is taken by the Columbia County Council on the Arts, whose 14th Annual Juried Show is on view at the Hudson Opera House through March 28. Judged by University at Albany Art Museum Director Janet Riker, this year's show awarded first and second prizes in 5 categories (painting, photography, sculpture, mixed-media, and works on paper), as well as a best-in-show, so everybody gets a little glory.

Riker is no pushover, however, and the work in the show is strong in each medium, providing a terrific opportunity to get a good overview of a diversity of excellent artists from the region. My favorites are too numerous to mention, though I must credit Hunger Moon, a video by Alan Coon that plays on animal and human locomotion; Car Jack, an amazing, very large drawing on wood panel by Keith Batten; and a simple - but not simplistic - stack of bricks by Jean-Marc Superville Sovak titled It Can't Last (shown at right).

Also presenting a large number of artists in one space is the Limner Gallery, whose Emerging Artists 2010 will be on view through March 27. I confess it was my first time visiting Limner, though it's been open under the wise guidance of an outstanding self-taught painter named Tim Slowinski since 1987 (!!!). It proved to be a great, if late, discovery.

I like a gallery that sets a style, and Limner is very much in that mode. All the art tended toward certain ideas and aesthetics that reflect, but do not mirror, Slowinski's own: carefully crafted, realist or Surrealist, deeply into social commentary. Many of the works showed good chops, but one stood out as truly extraordinary - a color drawing by Roberto Osti called Agnostic's Flight (shown at the bottom of this post). You must see it up close to be totally wowed by this piece, and you will, I promise, be wowed.

Finally, a show of abstract paintings by Claude Carone is at John Davis Gallery through March 28 and, as I always find at Davis, the work is impeccable. Elegant, warm, but with a tinge of the dark side, Carone's work is evocative without being representative.

This impression is borne out by his titles: Wind in Tinehir (shown above at left) or Glorious Morning, for example, are not meant to merely label the painting. After scanning the artwork, then noticing a list of these suggestive titles, I saw one that sounded familiar. Sure enough, Diver's Vision referred to the very painting I was thinking of - formally similar to the others, but with an undeniable underwater tone.

Other paintings in the show range from bright and linear to mysterious and layered, from the pastel-light to the earthily charred. The size range is modest, from about 8 by 10 inches up to about 2½ by 3 feet, but the surfaces and color relationships are very rich. It's a show not to be missed.

Fall exhibition preview

The season is upon us and we will never, ever catch up with it. But it’s worth trying, no? Here, in chronological order based on their opening dates, are some of the exhibitions that are happening in the region this fall that are on my radar. I will try (and fail) to see all of them, but I promise to review most of them as the weeks and months roll by. Meanwhile, you may want to mark these on your calendars.

Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art, which opened today (Sept. 8) and runs through Jan. 6 at the New York State Museum, explores the complicated issues surrounding race in American culture as seen in paintings and sculptures from the 19th and 20th centuries. Many of the art works and artifacts (including Black Child, the oil on canvas by Phillip Thomas Cole Tilyard shown above) were amassed by 19th-century collector Stephen C. Clark and the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Additional selections were culled from various public and private collections, including the New York State Museum. I expect it to be one of the top shows of the year.

Also already open, but with a reception on Saturday (Sept. 12) from 5 to 8 is Alchemie, a new show by the painter Laura Colomb. Recently named “Best Emerging Regional Curator” by Metroland for her work at the Saratoga Arts Center Gallery, Colomb’s newest body of work contains large diptychs with elements of Adirondack landscape and nature (image at right). This also marks the last solo show at UpstArt, which will close after a final group show in October, and the departure of Colomb from the area.

Opening Sunday (Sept. 13) is The Play of Light, a solo show at the First Unitarian Society by Oakroom Artist Gary Shankman. A fine painter in the Impressionist style, Shankman will show new work that includes studies of toys verging on the creepy. Reception is the following Sunday (Sept. 20) from 12:30 to 3.

The University (at Albany) Art Museum kicks of its season with Uncharted, a show with thematic ties to the exploration of the Hudson River that includes the work of 10 artists. Co-curated by director Janet Riker and staff curator Corinna Schaming Ripps, it opens with a reception from 5 to 7 on Tuesday, Sept. 15, and promises to be fascinating in a Po-Mo way.

Hudson Valley Community College's Teaching Gallery will host Is It Just Me?, which surveys the last 10 years of New York artist Jennifer Dalton's sculptures and installations that were based on exhaustive “excavations” of herself and her art world surroundings. The show opens with a reception on Thursday, Sept. 17, from 4 to 6, preceded by an artist talk at 3 in the Bulmer auditorium.

Off the beaten track, but truly intriguing, will be a reception and show from 4-7 on Saturday, Sept. 26 at the newly minted Malden Bridge Community Center. Titled Levity and Not So Much, the show features four women artists who will present drawings, paintings, sculptures and installations. Some of you might already know the work of their ringleader, Monica Miller. I do, and it is always terrific - as are her parties. Don't miss it. (The map at right will help you find the site - you can click on it for a bigger, printable version.)

Back to academia, on Sept. 27 a large collection of renowned photography by Texan Keith Carter will be on view at The College of Saint Rose's Massry Gallery. It's a beautiful, new space and Carter's sensual, unassuming work is sure to be a hit with area viewers.

Looking further ahead, another solo photography show will begin on Nov. 1 at Sage College of Albany's Opalka Gallery. Dona Ann McAdams' exhibition is titled Some Women - it features selected works by this street photographer-documentarian from 1974-2009. Expect classic black-and-white treatment of avant garde subject matter.

Still further ahead, Canajoharie's Arkell Museum plans to open Walter Wicks: Games, Gizmos and Toys in the Attic on Nov.15. The traveling exhibition showcases enlarged photographs and models by the children's book illustrator famous for the I Spy and Can You See What I See? series.

Other shows of interest include gallery exhibitions in Hudson through Oct. 11 at Carrie Haddad Gallery (Great Pretenders: An Exhibit of Art Fakery - image above right), Carrie Haddad Photographs (Melinda McDaniel, Joseph Putrock and Arnold Kastenbaum), BCB Art (Arlene Becker, Cynthia Coulter and Carla Shapiro), and the always superb John Davis Gallery (Fran Shalom paintings, plus Douglas Culhane, Erin Walrath, Grace Bakst Wapner, Jeremy Hoffeld and Barry Bartlett).

Hudson galleries

July gave us record amounts of rain. So, how about a little snow for August? That's part of what Carrie Haddad Gallery offers in its annual Landscapes exhibition, which opens with a reception tonight (Saturday) from 6 to 8 p.m. The snow is courtesy of Washington County painter Harry Orlyk (image above); the other featured artists are Tracy Helgeson, Robert Koffler, and Don Bracken.

While it might seem underwhelming conceptually, this summer landscape show sets a very high standard and even gets pretty edgy with Bracken's work, where extreme texture and a narrow tonal range evoke Anselm Kiefer. Koffler's neo-Modernist woodsy scenes range from seductively vivid to pensive (in his less colorful moments). Helgeson's more eye-pleasing palette and geometry dominate the big front room, where a surprisingly diverse collection of her quasi-formulaic works are grouped in exuberant clusters. And Orlyk, painting feverishly in his well-established Impressionist style, is brilliant as always.

Additional spotlight exhibitions by Linda Cross, Thomas Locker, and Russell DeYoung in the gallery's back room and upstairs spaces extend the landscape theme and, apart from Locker's cloying Luminism, maintain the level set by the feature show's artists.

Down at the opposite end of Warren Street, BCB Art has a solo show of works on paper by Sasha Chermayeff (shown below in her studio) that ends Aug. 9. Chermayeff's father is the graphic designer Ivan Chermayeff, and the graphic influence is readily apparent in this direct, gestural work that emphasizes primary colors and pared-down technique.

There is a childlike quality to this work that may or may not appeal to serious art viewers. I found it somewhat decorative, reading a bit more as designs for textiles than as resolved paintings - but a few of the works do go beyond the surface.

A collection of folded paper accordion books added heft to the presentation; also, a group of six smaller paintings, framed and presented in a grid, worked quite well.

A counterpoint to Chermayeff's no-frills approach comes in the form of the layered and very thoughtful mixed-media work of Yale Epstein, now on view at Albert Shahinian Fine Art. The solo exhibition, titled Inscriptions II: The Eloquent Brush, opened in late June and has been extended to Sept. 13.

Epstein, based in Woodstock, is in his 70s and has a very long list of achievements, including many shows locally and internationally, dozens of public and corporate collections, and a rapidly growing list of commissions. Known primarily as a printmaker, he moves easily from press, ink, and paper to oil, acrylic, and canvas. A strong, coherent selection of all his mediums is presented in this beautiful, multi-room gallery.

Among the more impressive pieces in the show is Chronicle I, a 4-foot painting reproduced at left. Its colors, composition, and calligraphy are representative of much of the work in the show, all of which has a distinct Oriental flavor. I was told that Epstein's characters are invented but, to one not schooled in Chinese writing, they felt authentic; it's interesting to note that a number of his commissions have been for sites in the Far East.

What Epstein aims for - and achieves - in this work is an experience of cross-cultural communication that transcends both time and geography, as alluded to in his introduction to a beautifully printed color catalog that accompanies the show. It is an extremely rich body of work by an artist totally immersed in the essence of history and connection.

A quite different, but equally compelling solo show of paintings is offered at John Davis Gallery through Aug 16. David Hornung combines heavily pigmented oils with encaustic to produce flat colors that are aesthetically similar to gouache, a medium he also favors. Plenty of works in both mediums are featured in this very clean presentation, where Hornung shares cheerful, allegorical scenarios that verge on illustration but remain poignantly personal (the example above is titled Remembering M).

It might be hard to pull this off if Hornung were less of a painter, but the work is no less convincing for being rather charming. I always find an encounter with paintings of such skill to be the perfect antidote to our era's emphasis on concept over craft. This work shows you can be original without abandoning strong technique.

And, speaking of original, there's a brilliant installation in the Davis Gallery's carriage house (out back, beyond the sculpture garden) by Leticia Ortega and Dionisio Cortes that conjures a stunning and relevant experience out of the simplest of materials: plastic bags of water. Titled when skies are hanged, it has been extended to Aug. 16, and is a must-see.

My final stop of the day was at Carrie Haddad Photographs, where a show titled Afterglow: Four Photographers and the Hand-Held Light will run through Aug. 30. Comprising photographic images that have been created through the use of hand-applied lighting with long exposures, this exhibition brings back an alternative technique, often called "painting with light" that was popular in the '70s.

In fact, some of the work in the show by David Lebe dates just about that far back, which is fine with me. (Side note: not all "contemporary" art needs to have been made last week to be worth looking at.) Along with Lebe, Robert Flynt and Warren Neidich work in black and white; Gary Schneider is the lone color practitioner in the group.

All four work directly with the human form (Lebe's Scribble, shown above, notwithstanding), in significantly varied ways. Neidich presents a grim grid of 12 images against a black background that emphasizes the skull-like qualities of the human head. Lebe works mostly with the male nude, sometimes adding hand-colored elements, to evoke a spiritual sexuality. Flynt crosses boundaries and genres by montaging and collaging elements into a wall-sized constellation of images pinned, flush-mounted, clipped in glass, or framed.

All of these are strong - but my favorite is Schneider, whose full-length, life-size frontal nudes (the one shown at right is titled Laura) evoke cadavers, despite the subjects' open eyes and alert expressions. They also afford the rare opportunity to examine a living stranger's anatomy, nasty bits included, which I'm pretty sure all of us can't resist doing any more than a dog can resist its rude sniffings.

So much comes down to sex and death; Schneider's work, and this show as a whole, makes that quite clear, but in a way that still feels life-affirming. And that's what good art is all about.

NOTE: Hudson's galleries have varied hours; most are open at least from noon to 5, Thursday through Monday, but to be sure, check their websites.

Hudson galleries

Spring has arrived, and the gallery scene in the mid-Hudson Valley is ready to heat up. I spent a sunny Friday afternoon in Hudson, where Warren Street is home to a dozen or so venues (down from more than 20 a couple of years ago), qualifying it as the epicenter of the valley's art market and the place to be on summer weekends.

With so many galleries, I had to pick and choose - and I apologize to those left out of this roundup, including worthy sites BCB Art, Limner Gallery, and Deborah Davis Fine Art. Those I did see ranged from the sublime to the almost awful, but above all it was a very pleasant experience - like cruising Chelsea without the stress and, particularly, without the New York attitude.

First up was the venerable Carrie Haddad Gallery http://www.carriehaddadgallery.com/, where a show titled Then and There featured three painters of three traditions: landscape, still life and Modernist abstraction. The big front room was filled by William Sillin's natural-world views (example above), the majority of which are postcard-sized and, frankly, do not transcend the postcard concept. His larger paintings show great skill and a bit more complexity, but I found I liked best of all a trio of his oil sketches from 1990. Has he lost the freshness he displays in those earlier works?

William Bond Walker and Judith Lamb, the other two featured artists, occupy smaller spaces in the gallery's inner labyrinth. Walker's abstract work generates energy with color and composition but is inconsistent; Lamb's stylized, realistic studies of fruits, vegetables, and flowers are a bit too facile.

But don't despair - a real reward awaits in the gallery's large back room, where Russell DeYoung has a strong showcase exhibition of small abstract paintings (the one at right is titled Rabbit Power). DeYoung uses a limited palette to great advantage, and his odd sense of design and layering gives these must-see works both playfulness and urgency.

Another stalwart of the Hudson scene, John Davis Gallery http://www.johndavisgallery.com/ is hosting a solo show of paintings, drawings, and monoprints by Constance Jacobson. Elegantly hung on two floors of space, the show is titled Above the Neck and, yes, it is quite literally cerebral (the image at left is titled Cortex Medusa).

Jacobson's ability with monochromatic design is her great strength - even where color is employed, it is usually one dominant color, and most of the work stays within a grey range. The strongest works are in India ink and blue ink on paper: Tentacles and Notochord, both dated 2009, evoke nerve synapses and other mysterious, microscopic bodily functions in a crisp, float-mounted installation with other drawings. It's a fine show in a lovely gallery.

Less enthralling was a show of 12 artists pulled together at the Hudson Opera House http://www.hudsonoperahouse.org/, where the unifying factor is that each received support from the MARK professional development program of the New York Foundation for the Arts. Titled Marking Time, the show stands as an example of why curating matters: These artists do not appear to belong together, and the result of the incoherent gathering is that they all bring each other down.

The opposite effect is achieved with Other Nature at Carrie Haddad Photographs http://www.carriehaddadgallery.com/index.cfm?method=Photography.CurrentExhibit, a space that opened in November under the able guidance of Haddad assistant Melissa Stafford. The four artists in Other Nature play off each other beautifully, mixing and matching a variety of digital and alternative techniques that will challenge traditional views of photography.

Lori Van Houten (her Field Notes: Seedfall 2006 is pictured at the top of this posting) offers complex layerings and textures; Jeri Eisenberg employs rice paper and encaustic to fix her soft-focus musings as free-hanging wall pieces; Portia Munson collages deftly in PhotoShop to make lush inkjet prints; and David Lebe's hand-colored photograms from 1989 (pictured above right is his Landscape #10.5) are nothing short of a revelation.

Another group photo show is hanging in another new space, this one an artists collective called gallery 345 that opened in December 2007 http://www.collective345.blogspot.com/. Peter Donahoe, Wendy Holmes Noyes, and David Schulz are somewhat mismatched in terms of style, but the casual nature of this small artist-run gallery allows that to work.

Donahoe shows circular portraits made with a pinhole camera (utilizing a tin can, the camera is also on display) that strongly evoke the 19th-century masterpieces of Julia Margaret Cameron; Noyes combines a range of techniques to plumb the meanings of objects and artifacts left behind by her mother; and Schulz presents a group of four diptychs that explore the potential of juxtaposition.

Finally, the highlight of the day came with a visit to the extraordinary space that now houses Nicole Fiacco Gallery http://nicolefiaccogallery.com/ (recently moved from a few blocks up the street). Fiacco's museum-quality white box contains a bizarre but wonderful installation by John Cleater, whose first foray into sculpture was aided by a residency at the John Michael Kohler Art Center (that's the plumbing-fixture Kohler).

Appendages consists of a fanciful group of highly polished, wall-hung objects in metallic or enameled finishes (one is pictured below) that are clearly drawn from the anatomy of sinks and basins, but look more like underwater creatures. Most feature standard drains; a number are shaped just like a giant toilet handle; and one incorporates a tiny video display of the artist's eye blinking in Morse code.

It's the kind of work that makes you stop and marvel at the creative process. Rarely do I find myself asking the age-old question "Where the heck do they get their ideas?" - but this was one of those times. Kudos to experimental architect Cleater on his first show at Fiacco.

Be aware that most of Hudson's galleries are open from about 10 to 6 during extended weekends - Thursday through Monday - but their hours vary. Most of the shows mentioned here continue through the end of March; Other Nature will hang through April 19.