Nancy Hoffman Gallery's summer exhibition entitled "Circles" includes works by Linda Mieko Allen, Howard Buchwald, Rupert Deese, Don Eddy, Viola Frey, Rohan Harris, Hung Liu, Lynn McCarty, John Okulick, Frank Owen, Michele Pred, Richard Purdy and Joseph Raffael. The exhibition opens on June 24 and continues through September 4, 2006.
Rohan Harris, Untitled, 2000, mixed media, 22 inches diameter	Rohan Harris, Focus, 2001, mixed media, 22 inches diameter
Titled for the most universal of shapes, signs or symbols, the circle is found in all cultures. It is the symbol of the sun in its limitlessness. In Chinese iconography it is called the "pi" and symbolizes the universe. It has no beginning, no end, thus it has come to mean completeness, eternity, and the soul. Finally, the circle represents enclosure, boundary, a ring, suggesting completion, love, returning cycles. A potent shape and symbol.
While the above meanings are not uppermost in the minds of the artists whose works are on view, the pure abstract shape of the circle, the reference to tondo paintings of the Renaissance and thus, to the history of art, the absence of corners, present opportunities and challenges for these artists. Some artists work in tondo form stretching canvas over round stretcher bars, creating supports of wood in circular format, creating drawings on round pieces of paper; others utilize the circle as a primary motif in their work within the confines of a rectangular space.
Howard Buchwald, Circle I, 2006, colored pencil on paper, 35 inches diameter	Howard Buchwald, Circle III, colored pencil on paper, 35 inches diameter
In Howard Buchwald's "Circle I" and "Circle III," there is no beginning, no end. The viewer's eye continues to travel around the circle's perimeter and journey to its center, never stopping. There is no resting place, the drawing is pure energy. The interchange of colors, the shapes, the rhythms knit tightly together in an elusive interplay of changing relationships whose effect is one of generosity and openness.
Rupert Deese, Merced and Tuolumne Rivers no. 8, 2005, oil on wood, 40 inches diameter	Don Eddy, Speaking in Tongues XI, 2005, acrylic on canvas, 36 inches diameter
Rupert Deese has been working in tondo format for years, in oil on plywood, which has been shaped and cut and faceted by the artist to echo the shape of the mountainous watershed areas surrounding the Merced and Tuolomne Rivers in California. The rivers and mountains of California provide the artist with an opportunity to create meditative abstract painting with nature as its source. Don Eddy’s "Speaking in Tongues" series depicts orchids, the most anthropomorphic of flowers. Painted in acrylic, this series is the artist's personal contemporary Tower of Babel. Using nature as his vehicle, Eddy's larger than life orchids in circular format comment on language and communication while the orchids are suffused with light, the other subject of "Speaking in Tongues." Viola Frey's circular plates are in the tradition of Della Robbia's heraldic tondos, created of clay and Egyptian paste. Donald Kuspit wrote in a catalogue of Frey's plates:
Viola Frey, Pegasus, 2000, ceramic, 25 inches diameter	Viola Frey, Monkey and Horse, 2001, ceramic, 25 inches diameter
Viola Frey, Mask of Tragedy Series #1, 1998, ceramic, 24 inches diameter	Viola Frey, Mask of Tradedy Series #3, 1998, ceramic, 24 inches diameter
"These works are hell-bent on excess—full of demonic vitality and horror vacui. Frey's imagination has become formally baroque. That is, each plate seems like a marvelously irregular yet uncannily perfect pearl. Indeed, if pearls are the oyster's ecstatic response to an irritation, then Frey's ecstatic plates are perfect pearls, for their intensity is a response to such irritations of life as death and memory."
Frank Owen, Threaders: Carnelian and Shell, 2004, acrylic on canvas, 84 x 84 inches	Hung Liu, Hero I, 2006, mixed media, 38 x 33 inches
Linda Mieko Allen, Fraction IV, 2004, mixed media, 18 x 18 inches	Michele Pred, Encirclement, 2003-2004, confiscated airport items, size variable
The artists mentioned above work in tondo format, others in the show use the circle as a recurring motif throughout the composition, such as Frank Owen whose "Threader" series is inspired by the beauty of Venetian glass beads. For Owen these works are the visual equivalent of the pleasure principle, incorporating all the things he knows how to do in paint.
Lynn McCarty, Go, 2006, oil on aluminum, 18 x 18 inches	Lynn McCarty, Ambient, 2006, oil on aluminum, 18 x 30 inches
Lynn McCarty, Yes, Yes, 2006, oil on aluminum, 14 x 14 inches	Lynn McCarty, See, 2006, oil on aluminum, 22 x 22 inches
Steve Deihl, Celestial Navigation (zeta), 2002, oil on gessoed paper, 10 x 12 inches	Steve Deihl, Celestial Navigation (eta), 2002, oil on gessoed paper, 10 x 12 inches
Like all abstract paintings rooted either in cosmology or in the landscape, these paintings are somewhat referential. One cannot help but think of constellations whirling through space, planets spinning as the artist's orbs whirl through a field of multicolor.
Linda Mieko Allen, Smoke and Ghosts III, 2006, mixed media, 6 x 6 inches	Linda Mieko Allen, Systopic III, 2006, mixed media, 6 x 6 inches
Linda Mieko Allen's new work investigates structures, elements and binding properties "that connect us with nature, history and the circulatory movement of life," she says. The cycles and circulatory rhythms are echoed in her preference for circular shapes within the color field. Visual punctuations of the sumptuous surface, her circles and ellipses seem to surge with the pulse of life.
John Okulick, Three Fingered Pixel, 2006, mixed media, 31 x 32 x 4 inches	John Okulick, Bird Call, 2006 mixed media, 69 x 78 x 8 inches
Joseph Raffael, Bali Lotus, 1998, watercolor on paper, 12 inches diameter	Joseph Raffael, Camellia, 1999, watercolor on paper, 12 inches diameter
Greg Halili, Round Orchid Series II 40, 2002-2003, watercolor on paper, 7 x 5 inches	Greg Halili, Round Orchid Series II 41, 2002-2003, watercolor on paper, 7 x 5 inches
Greg Halili, Round Orchid Series II 42, 2002-2003, watercolor on paper, 7 x 5 inches	Greg Halili, Round Orchid Series II 43, 2002-2003, watercolor on paper, 7 x 5 inches
Greg Halili, Round Orchid Series II 45, 2002-2003, watercolor on paper, 7 x 5 inches	Greg Halili, Round Orchid Series II 46, 2002-2003, watercolor on paper, 7 x 5 inches