Pictures duet with sculptures, whether by the same or another artist, in four current local exhibitions. The results can be either harmonic or contrapuntal, and sometimes a bit of both.
Voids define the art of painter Stephen Maine and sculptor Christopher Miles, who are showing together in Pazo Fine Art's smartly curated "The Radical Middle." But the cavities in these works are not dark, or at least not entirely. Both artists employ bright hues, often arrayed in vigorous contrasts. Indeed, the clash of colors can be just as dramatic as the juxtaposition of solidity and emptiness.
Maine makes vertical abstractions whose burn-like patterns resemble the effects of solarization. These "residue paintings" are crafted through a sort of printmaking process. The New Yorker gouges plywood-and-Styrofoam matrixes, coats them with acrylic paint, and transfers the pigment to a canvas by pressing on the plate and even walking on it. This process is repeated several times, yielding pictures that feature multiple colors but are dominated by just two. Hot reds or yellows often play against cooler blues or greens. The effect is to fill the hollows in Maine's compositions with chromatic activity.
The nooks in Miles's ceramic sculptures are deeper than in Maine's paintings, and sometimes led to chasms that are too hidden to be illuminated at all. The Los Angeles artist's six pieces are in eccentric shapes that suggest miniature grottoes, internal organs, or corroded historic artifacts; one vaguely resembles a human torso, poised atop truncated thighs. The forms appear eroded by time, but are rejuvenated by vivid glazes. Like Maine, Miles covers surfaces with myriad hues, of which two dominate. Sometimes the contrasting color outlines the roughly circular portals that open visual paths into the sculptures's interiors.
Despite the two artists's disparate media and techniques, their works are remarkably complementary. Both Maine and Miles make pieces that are vivid, canny, and kinetic. Most strikingly, they endow the negative spaces in their art with just as much presence as the positive ones.