Toronto artist DREW HARRIS offers an appealing variation on abstract expressionism in his current show, titled “The Exchange Series, 1997,” at Lydon Fine Art. Harris paints broad expanses and drips in acrylics, and applies over them a wash of oils with a rag to create a dense layering. He heightens that sense of depth by creating shapes that remotely resemble windows and other apertures and by digging through the layers, though only with the most subtle markings. Harris’ sojourns in the Far East are visible in his use of Chinese red symbols and lines, which adds vitality to his otherwise somber palette of blacks, beiges, browns and grays. The “X” symbol that he also incorporates has several connections, Harris writes: the experience of voting and expressing choice, the decision to cross out a wrong answer, the Roman numeral and the symbol’s connection to strength. But “X” also can refer, he says, to the marks left on humble table tops at an Indonesian cafe by decades of coffee spoons and forks. The show continues at 301 W. Superior St. through Sept. 2.
Before it closes today, go see the small group of paintings by Polish-born Andrzej Domanski at Eastwick Art Gallery. The Chicago resident offers a new twist on portraiture by calling to mind a classic painting tradition through the subjects’ courtly attire and landscapes and castles in the background. But Domanski varies this tradition ever so slightly by enlarging the heads of his subjects and giving them poses and facial details that create slightly absurd, even extraterrestrial-looking beings. Faces are painted in profile or three-quarter view rather than straight on. Eyes stare straight ahead, noses are narrowed and elongated unrealistically, mouths are tightly pursed — almost uncomfortably so — and skin tone seems too white, as if a stocking was pulled over the heads. The show can be seen at Eastwick, 245 W. North Ave.
