The four participants in “Beyond Surface,” a new exhibition at Pazo Fine Art, begin with the language of painting and drawing but expand that vernacular into the third dimension. The resulting artworks may be sleek or craggy, tightly contained or free form. But all speak fluently to each other, indicating that Pazo Fine Art was astute to convene these artists, three from Washington and one from Baltimore.
Installation view, Beyond Surface. Photograph by Vivian Doering.
Both Joanne Kent and Giulia Livi draw from color field painting, yet their work is also sculptural. Kent’s rectangular pieces are essentially blocks of a single hue. The artist complicates the format by applying oil paint in thick tangles that produce swells and shallows, and sometimes by including additional shades that are close but not identical to the dominant one. The paintings’ beguiling depths are simultaneously illusory and actual.
Most of Livi’s sculptures protrude about as far from the wall as Kent’s, undulating in regular curves. Made of painted tile, four of the pieces curl neatly, one into a partial tube and another whose ripples shift from pink to lilac. The other Livi creation is made of painted foam that bulges softly within its hard-edge contour. As with the Baltimore artist’s other sculptures, the effect is to freeze motion serenely in space.
Both Ara Koh and Kristina Penhoet draw lines with tangled strands that appear to dangle and pool. Koh’s sculptures look like piles of ribbons whose hues become subtly darker toward the bottom of the heap. But the threads are in fact ceramic, so their seeming softness is a canny deception.
Penhoet’s works, which really are pliable, are made primarily of off-white wool that’s woven and knotted to yield various thicknesses. Two of the pieces hang from ceiling to floor, evoking trees, vines or Rapunzel-length tresses while casting shadows whose movements emphasize how the fibers sway. Of these artists, Penhoet is the only one to forgo color, but she makes the most energetic use of motion.
Beyond Surface Through Aug. 3 at Pazo Fine Art, 1932 Ninth St. NW (entrance at 1917 9½ St. NW). pazofineart.com. 571-315-5279.