The four artists of Pazo Fine Art’s “Q&A” are of a similar age — mostly in their 40s — and all have ties to the Washington area, where three now live. Stylistically, however, they diverge.
Installation view, Q & A. Photograph by Vivian Doering.
Brian Michael Dunn makes pattern paintings that double as gentle landscapes. Jason Gubbiotti (who lives in France) constructs paintings on wood that emphasize their own physical attributes. Jon Malis produces digital prints of color charts and other hard-edge ready-made abstractions. Eric Uhlir paints jam-packed expressionist scenes that appear fleshy even when they don’t literally depict the human body.
The works, assembled by curator Mandy Cooper, overlap here and there. Gubbiotti’s “Raising Butterflies,” whose surface is mostly raw plywood, includes wing shapes that dovetail with Dunn’s flowers, berries and, yes, butterflies. A black-and-white chart rendered by Malis complements Gubbiotti’s “Grey Life,” a single-hued expanse punctuated by straight lines and incised notches. The density of Uhlir’s loose, hot-colored compositions corresponds to the intricacy of Dunn’s cooler, tidier pictures. The four artists may not have much in common aesthetically, but the pieces in this show do have a few things to say to each other.
