Collette Chucherko
contributing writer
The O’Connor Art Gallery exhibition titled “The Shape of Things” features artists Allison Reimus, Zoe Nelson, and Patrick Chamberlain. Their work and this exhibition is centered on the use of innovative shapes and materials in traditional paintings and seeks to challenge viewers to think about the relationship between themselves and the spaces and shapes around them. With the use of energetic colors and interesting textures, these artists provide viewers with playfully abstract works of art.
Artist Allison Reimus, from Saginaw, Michigan, seeks to show her audiences how art can be both decorative and functional. Her 2015 piece “Paint Pitcher 2”, is a combination of oil, spray paint and collage on linen. The canvas itself is shaped in a way that makes it appear wider at the top and slimmer towards the bottom, moving away from the traditionally even sided canvas shape.
The image itself depicts what appears to be an abstract form of a pitcher with added textures that create depth within the painting. Her use of circles and triangles play with the exhibition theme of nontraditional shapes within the work. Using a vibrant red color, Reimus gives viewers a color gradient that carries the eye from the top of the painting to the bottom, consistent with the shape of the canvas, creating an all-around cohesive work of art.
Zoe Nelson’s piece “Touching (recto)” strikes viewers not simply with its energetic colors and vast size, but also with the artist’s choice of presentation. Nelson chose to have this piece moved off the gallery wall and presents it as a floating singular object within the gallery space, giving the work an almost ethereal ambiance.
Though the canvas itself is traditional in nature, Nelson challenges the rectangular shape by added triangular cutouts within the work. By doing so, the artist broke up the piece giving it a unique shape, allowing viewers to walk around the piece and experience something new from each angle.
The piece’s coloring ranges from vibrant oranges, blues, and purples, to black, grays, and whites, all using the same texture and brushstrokes. This offers viewers with a feeling of movement from the base form to its inverted counterpart. In a similar fashion, the choice to create the cut outs in a triangular form, provides a negative space to the painted triangles on the canvas.
Patrick Chamberlain provides viewers with interestingly shaped canvases and shows his artistic hand with the addition of paint drips and evident brushstrokes. His work, “Rumpled Sheets”, uses oil on canvas and depicts a very abstract and textured image. He challenges the traditional shape of paintings by allowing the edges of his canvas to seep out and create additions to the basic square shape.
The work is personalized with canvas strings dangling from the edges, and drips of paint splattered across the center of the work. Though the figures in the work are not recognizable and abstract, Chamberlain’s use of color carries the viewer’s eyes across the painting. His choice to place thick black streaks on the outer edges of the painting with bright colors such as orange, white, and pinks in the center, draw the viewer’s eyes to the center of the work, and then back around.
The art work done by artists Zoe Nelson, Allison Reimus, and Patrick Chamberlain exemplify the theme behind the O’Connor Art Gallery’s exhibition “The Shape of Things”. Each artist challenges the traditional shapes used in the art world by morphing the canvases to appear abstract and unique. Using interesting textures, peculiar shapes, and energetic colors, these three artists combine painting and sculpture to reflect on the shapes and spaces around them.
chuccoll@my.dom.edu