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Art Espresso is ArtScope.net's shortlist of recommended exhibitions currently showing.

4 Contemporary Artists:
David de Castro, Edward Ott,
Trent Albert and Christine Isperian
November 19 - December 30, 2004

Judy Saslow Gallery
300 W. Superior St.
Chicago, IL 60610
tel.: 312-943-0530
hours: Tues-Sat 10a-6p
http://www.judysaslowgallery.com/

4 Contemporary Artists offers fifty-one selections from four quite different bodies of work, unified by their use of process and pre-existing form. The contrasts surprise and delight.

Artist David de Castro presents ten selections from two bodies of work, one more recent, the other an earlier direction. The artist's more recent works involve abstractions on canvas, founded on impressions physically torn from the painted surfaces of his wooden studio floor. Contrasting both the free-form areas of bare canvas that result, and the exuberant splashes of paint the artist adds, the impression left by the floorboards is a unique take on a 'found object' (or rather, absence of a found object?) that provides a foil of regular, linear rhythm for the wilder, unrestrained elements of abstraction. Two of De Castro's earlier box constructions, also featured here, draw on the segmented sectioning of the type-drawers used in letterpress printing -- rhythmic forms and stops, punctuated with bright sections of color and bringing in as well the shadowbox-depth of the letter trays themselves. In both bodies of work, de Castro begins with found, man-made geometries, using them as a starting point for the additions and subtractions of his own personal introspection that will create the finished, abstract work.

Trent Albert's twenty-one photographs of Chicago landmarks also draw on man-made geometries: here, the details of urban exteriors, some displaying the hard-edged, angularity of postmodern architecture, others showing the curvaceous detail of the Empire style. Whether drawing in on a tight focus of a single element or presenting a wide shot of Chicago's urban landscape from on high, Albert highlights human patterns, large and small. Perhaps even more so than easel art, photography is a highly conscious process of visual selection in terms of composition, cropping and exposure; Albert's presentation of process is further heightened by leaving the crop marks as visual framing for his photographs.

Edward Ott highlights the flow of organic form in the sensual graining of balsa veneer. Ott employs oil wood stain, using lighter or darker stains and applications to harmonize with the underlying grain as a visual element. In the ten larger works, the images he draws from the wood present a moody, Munch-like vision, particularly Untitled (2004: oil on wood: 48x48in.), with its three spectral figures emerging from the natural rhythms of the wood grain. Four smaller works try to do the same with paint rather than the stain but are less successful, picking up on the physical graining of the wood but losing its subtle depths.

Christine Isperian's six drawings in blue pencil on paper also evoke an organic flow. Isperian's work is the most free-form of the four artists, its imagery generated by the 'automatic' actions of the artist's arm and hand as she moves it around the page, letting the forms begin to resolve, then working with the results. These rounded, globular shapes have an x-ray quality to them, some nestled within one another and calling to mind seeds, internal organs, or a secret, uterine world.

4 Contemporary Artists reminds us that creation involves adding and subtracting, choice among options -- both working with, and acting upon, existing forms. Four diverse visions, fifty-one works, unified by their glimpse into artistic process: experimenting, selecting, framing, rejecting, making the choices that will guide the work to its completion. The works of David de Castro, Edward Ott, Trent Albert and Christine Isperian will be on display at Judy Saslow Gallery through December 30, 2004.

--Katherine Rook Lieber

Katherine Rook Lieber has edited ArtScope.net's Visual Arts reviews since 1998. Ms. Lieber is Editor and Associate Producer for ArtScope.net.