Ed Albers has given the title “Mutatum” (mutation) to a number of his paintings at Betsy Rosenfield Gallery, and it gets at the gist of his project in this most recent series.
A typical image, faint on a whitish, stucco-like ground, begins with what looks like a ball joint and bone, like the humerus of the upper arm, that tapers unexpectedly into a tree limb with a couple of finger-like dead leaves. These slightly creepy, familiar yet alien objects look as though they might have been recovered from some paleontologist’s lab on Mars.
Others of these imagined, transforming objects look like empty husks of dead plant life, or pods or crustaceous fossils.
Not much about these oil and tempera paintings and mixed media works on paper are pretty or at all gussied up; the images are depicted frontally in a vaguely defined space, reminding one a little of a very spare kind of medical illustration. Albers is subtracting color and complexity as compared with works of just three years ago; some pale greens and browns seep in from the borders of some paintings, which are worn as though crumbling with age.
A couple of pieces give off a spark by presenting an object vertically, calling to mind figural associations. In one, an untitled painting, many root-like tendrils coalesce into a trunk with a knob-like head that droops forward, unaccountably reminding this viewer of images of the crucified Christ.
That may be going a bit farther afield than is intended. The majority of Albers’ new works are so plain, even severe, and the imaginary objects so denuded, that one is left hungry for something more. In a few of the larger pieces, more spectral forms rise from the ethereal background-something like a jawbone, and a kind of seed casing-and the foreground image is pushed off to the side for some welcome variety.
Overall, Albers’ new works seem like studies for future pieces that, one would hope, might be less reticent and more visually inventive.
The exhibition continues through March 20 at 212 W. Superior St.
Megan Williams’ pastel drawings, part of a strange and diverting group show at N.A.M.E. Gallery, are probably the most strange and diverting of the lot.
Williams has worked as a professional animator and while that shows in her preference for cartoonish figures, these are to Walt Disney what Sonic Youth is to Sinatra. Disturbing sexual undertones and bizarre bodily distortions are presented in a style that mixes surrealism and pop cultural influences.
In the back room, Margaret Morton has succeeded in balancing documentary impulses with the more formal dictates of postmodern photography in her images of makeshift shelters in New York City’s Tompkins Square Park.
Part of what is striking about these images is their sense of stillness and absence. The structures, and the buildings that surround them, were erected as human habitation yet there are no people to be seen anywhere. Morton’s format and composition isolate the objects depicted in archetypal fashion, each seriatim image containing shelter, bare branches, ground, buildings in a new configuration, giving them an aura of timelessness even as socioeconomic ironies are underscored.
Also included in the show, which continues through April 2 at 700 N. Carpenter St., are sculptures by Estella Lackey and paintings by Hiroko Saito.
Anchor Graphics, a non-profit combination printshop and gallery space, will hold its second annual fundraiser and silent auction of prints on March 26 at World Tattoo Gallery, 1255 S. Wabash Ave.
Among those artists donating prints are Tony Fitzpatrick, Richard Hull, David Russick and Karl Wirsum.
The auction will take place from 7 to 9 p.m., followed by music and refreshments until 11 p.m. Admission is $10 and proceeds will go to expanding the free courses offered to local youth. For more information call 312-252-4669. Anchor Graphics is at 935 N. Damen Ave. in the Wicker Park neighborhood.
