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

Cameron Zebrun: Constructed Paintings

March 18 - April 20, 2005

Gwenda Jay/Addington Gallery
704 N. Wells St.
Chicago, IL 60610
tel. 312-664-3406
hours:
http://www.gwendajay.com

"The essence of the earth's beauty lies in disorder, a peculiarly patterned disorder, from the fierce tumult of rushing water to the tangled filigrees of unbridled vegetation," author James Gleick maintains. Nature is fractal, turbulent, yet in this seeming chaos, evident of greater patterns, large and small. Cameron Zebrun: Constructed Paintings draws in elements of this flowing, swirling disorder in nine works of oil painting on wood constructions: earthy tones, whirling flows, expressions of the weather-patterns and river-flow the artist loves so well.

In A River II (oil on wood construction: 38 x 52 x 5 in), as in other works, the broad, sheerly curved construction suggests an aerodynamic surface, the wing of an airplane or the side of a planet. Zebrun works in flexible plywood, forming it on an armature of curved wooden supports, often incorporating multiple levels. The result seems as weightless as balsa, floating independent of the wall, edges often worked into a free-form shape suggestive of natural erosion. Whether ochres and reds, or the blues of clear sky or clear water, 'disorderly' swirls of earth-toned paints resolve into images revealing earth's capacity for similar pattern, large or small -- whorls of atmospheric presence seen from space, or the rushing turmoil of river water glimpsed at close range. Straight lines, incised into the wood or delicately dotted as in a map-making grid, incorporate a human presence into these works. The artist also favors an elongated 'canoe' shape, symbolic of solitude, exploration, journeys, which blends particularly well with the natural elements of his constructions.

Zebrun evokes expressions of tumult, order in wildness, the straight plain lines of man's control lending a contrasting element to these naturalistic works. Nine selections, oil painting on wooden constructions, explore, as Gleick notes, "the delicate tension between order and disorder" as drawn from the manifold patterning of nature. The constructions, particularly, add a dimensional element of soaring and lightness that deserves to be seen 'in the flesh'. Cameron Zebrun: Constructed Paintings will be at Gwenda Jay/Addington Gallery through April 20, 2005.

--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.

Editorial Note: James Gleick is quoted from his introduction to Nature's Chaos (Little, Brown: October 2001). Nature's Chaos, and other books mentioned in www.artscope.net reviews, may be purchased by clicking on the link above or through the Amazon.com links located throughout this site.