Rhonda Wall appropriates images from everyday media that we are bombarded with including printed matter, found internet material, and her own photographs. Works are assembled using carefully arranged images that are augmented with paint. Themes center on anything happening in the public conversation. Technology and nature intersect with feminism, pop icons, scientific breakthroughs, and 60’s space exploration. In the studio, she obsesses over unpredictable and seemingly unrelated events that are happening simultaneously all around us. This results in panoramic scenes that feature stylized figures comprised of dozens of seemingly unrelated images. The resulting work becomes an altarpiece memorializing our news diet.
The Handwerker’s West Gallery will host Brian Wiggins’ solo show Fabrications, featuring his dynamic and visually disruptive works in oil and acrylic. In the mid-90’s Brian Wiggins was diagnosed with Pigmentary Dispersion Syndrome, a potential precursor to glaucoma. This rare genetic disorder became fuel to engage abstraction from a different angle where he could approach the experience of color and form as structures without a fixed foundation. The result is static experience that appears continually in flux.
Wiggins’ colorful geometric abstractions possesses an uncharacteristically painterly quality. Although the nature of the work is linear, he thinks of each line as a distinct shape shouldering an adjacent form. By employing seemingly unrelated colors, he disrupts any potential harmony or organization to explore the spaces between colors. When we focus on the boundary, we find that solid forms are destabilized, exposing the fallibility of perception.
