“Jelly” at Mesa Contemporary Arts: Tucson-based artist Gwyneth Scally reminisces about beachfront life in this installation of large-scale sculptures and acrylic paintings, all focused on the beauty and danger of jellyfish. Its an intelligent, exotic exhibit that examines the relationship between science and spirituality using imagery that viewers, especially coastal…
After nine years in the desert, the feel of the cool ocean water lapping at my toes is a faded childhood memory. Growing up on Long Island, I spent summers along the sandy shores, picking up purple-streaked shells and poking at the runny carcasses of jellyfish that would slowly dissolve…
Painter Gwyneth Scally, 33, is accustomed to walking in two worlds. She has degrees in English literature and studio art. She’s a self-professed atheist who went to Catholic school. And she lives in the barren desert, despite her love of the sea. Raised by a scientific-minded English father and a…
“Reflections from Within: Charlie Emmert” at West Valley Art Museum: If Emmerts oil portraits of notable historical figures accurately reflect their personalities, then these guys were one miserable lot. In OKeeffe Study, a thin veil of gray watercolor drips like tears over the artists heavily wrinkled and forlorn face. It…
“Don’t Eat Tuna More Than Two Times a Week” was the unforgettable advice you may have received while driving north on Mill Avenue past Gammage Auditorium last spring. The posted chalkboard-style signs bearing wacky wisdom at the side of the road were part of Arizona State University’s first “Shared Terrain”…
“IN-CRIMI-NATION” at The Icehouse: If you think the Iraq War is our countrys low point, wait until you see The Icehouses latest sniper shot at America. Artist Mona Higuchis 12-foot-high woven paper reprint of a vintage photograph depicting Japanese girls stitching camouflage cargo nets at an internment camp is a…
A few years ago, a friend of mine had a great idea for a Halloween costume. His plan was to find a framed painting of a woman’s portrait, cut out the eyes, and peek through the holes. He would be the mysterious shifty-eyed spy seen in horror movies or the…
Any scene worth its salt comes with cliques, and the coolest club in the Phoenix art world is Collective Gesture, a group of artists, curators, and writers who communicate mostly via an invite-only listserv. Sometimes they come out to play, and this month, they’ve launched a show, “Do Me,” in…
In serious art circles, “craft” is a dirty word. It means crocheted doilies and wooden birdhouses, the handmade kitsch you would find at church rummage sales. Form is secondary to function. Installation artist Bruce Nauman, who was featured in PBS’ Art:21 series, said, “It’s the intention that turns a staircase…
Make a Saturday morning stop at the neighborhood garage sale, and you might find a stack of watercolors depicting flowers, butterflies and landscapes, at 25 cents apiece. They look like public-access how-to works, and they really aren’t that great. Mom painted these back in the ’80s when she needed an…
His pseudonym reads like that of a second-rate sci-fi author. The name of his solo exhibition is derived from the language of the apes spoken in Tarzan novels. His work is a gold mine of Freudian obsessions, from big-breasted babes with Barbie waistlines to superhero men with bulging biceps and…
Drawing is often considered a “practice” art. Granted, Michelangelo’s sketch The Risen Christ sold at auction for a record $12.3 million a few years ago. Even Picasso’s rough sketches of his mistress, Genevieve Laporte, fetched a hefty sum. The catch is that only after their deaths and their recognition as…
After Dark: 100 Years of the Evening Dress at Phoenix Art Museum: Your old prom dress probably isn’t a masterpiece, but formal wear by Oscar De La Renta and Gianni Versace can be as desirable as a Rembrandt. Phoenix Art Museum’s exhibit of 30 gowns, selected from their cache of…
Blame it on the History Channel’s Hiroshima documentaries or the section in theology class on the Rapture. Apocalyptic visions are undeniably enthralling. I don’t know about you, but I can’t help but contemplate how mass hysteria would look, feel and smell. So when I come across a show like “Gardening…
Alison Dunn at eye lounge: Viewers, on average, spend less than five seconds looking at any one painting in a museum or gallery. This statistic doesn’t bode well for Alison Dunn, whose murky mixed-media paintings at first appear to be simple abstractions. A closer look reveals an underlying depth and…
During a recent visit to the newly expanded Phoenix Art Museum, I overheard a fellow patron say, “The art at this museum never ceases to disappoint me on a regular basis.” Funny, that’s just how I felt about “Modern by Nature: Ansel Adams in the 1930s,” a retrospective meant to…
Everybody has bad days. You know, the kind of day when you oversleep, realize you have no breakfast food in the house, painfully injure your foot on a broken office chair and get stood up by a client — all before noon. Sigh. I’m convinced there must be some order…
I’m not a “girly” girl. I don’t like pink, and I’ll take my dingy brown Doc Martens over high heels, hands down. So admittedly I wanted to cut and run when I first spied Kathleen Holmes’ collection of metal, glass and ceramic sculptures at Scottsdale’s Cervini Haas gallery. Six dresses…
Remember when your first-grade teacher said that without the abundant rays of the sun, the Earth would die? Humans can’t get enough of the stuff, and nothing proves our sentimentality for shine like the work on display at “Molten: Glass and Neon Art” at Mesa Contemporary Arts. The four featured…
“Big Works” at Herberger Theater Center: Critics of Chicago’s newly installed Agora, a public art sculpture featuring 106 headless bronze figures, can attest to the fact that bigger doesn’t necessarily equal better when it comes to art. Thankfully, physical size wasn’t the sole requirement for inclusion in this eclectic exhibition…
If you’ve lived in the Southwest for any amount of time, chances are you’ve already seen your fair share of howling coyotes, dream catchers and geometric pottery patterns. I grew up here — enough said. Popular Native American art is the backdrop for much of life in the Valley, blended…
“Big Works” at Herberger Theater Center: Critics of Chicago’s newly installed Agora, a public art sculpture featuring 106 headless bronze figures, can attest to the fact that bigger doesn’t necessarily equal better when it comes to art. Thankfully, physical size wasn’t the sole requirement for inclusion in this eclectic exhibition…
