Satiate Your Midsummer Origami Cravings at Brea Gallery’s ‘PaperWorks Refolded’
Dave Barton of the OC Weekly stopped by to visit PaperWorks Refolded. Here's his review:
Satiate Your Midsummer Origami Cravings at Brea Gallery’s ‘PaperWorks Refolded’
AUGUST 2, 2018
For a case study in the possibilities of curation, consider a visit to “PaperWorks Refolded” at Brea Gallery. Director and curator Heather Bowling has made stellar choices in her artists; the show’s layout is seamless; and her interactive collage and origami pit stops allow people to effectively put what they’re seeing into practice. The sequel to a previous Brea Gallery show built around works made of paper, Bowling’s exhibition qualifies as some of the very best art I’ve seen this year.
Margaret Griffith’s paper ironwork, hanging in loops from the main gallery’s ceiling, resembles spiky, barred gates crashing into one another, tumultuous waves of black and ivory. Alexis Arnold’s Borax-dipped novel sculptures are pretty enough to be Martha Stewart decorations, their shiny crystal coatings suggesting words and ideas frozen in time: a bulky copy of Ayn Rand’s crapfest The Fountainheadan autopsied fossil of mediocre philosophy; Arnold’s artier version of Ernest Cline’s novel Ready Player One doubling down on its pop-culture fetishization.
Nikki Rosato’s dissected images use vintage road maps’ thoroughfares, roads and highways, whittling away at their land masses, until they create two people gazing into each other’s eyes (Couple: Boston, MA). It’s the kind of art that dazzles the mind, making you wonder how someone could have possibly come up with such a brilliant idea. I’m grateful she did, as her genius metaphors for connection, internal emotional maps and personal travel histories all connected deeply with me.
Aimée Baldwin uses the thin fragility of paper to re-create entirely believable plants and flowers in elegant shadowboxes, her fauna including cruelty-free “vegan taxidermy” paper birds. They’re masterpieces of time and tender craftsmanship, with an eye-catching favorite being a peregrine falcon feasting on the bloody tissue of a pigeon that it has downed.
Just as exciting are the flowers and cityscapes of artistic duo JUDiTH + ROLFE, with their colorful, swirling floral designs as elegant and shapely as the real thing, their ornate, re-created architecture—balconies, windows and latticework—from Venice, Jali and Notre Dame instantly recognizable even without their descriptive titles.
Kiel Johnson’s deft, intricate sculptures of SLR cameras, a boombox and cassettes, trumpets, and the crowded urban sprawl of a River Front resemble toys for adults, ones you’d admire after putting them up on a shelf and away from the kids. Adrienne Heloise’s historical images of Napoleon’s armies lack the overt homoeroticism of some of her other pictures in the series, but there’s still enough naked flesh, water glancing off a chin (Waterboy) and men gazing into each other’s eyes to offer frisson, while still vague enough that it takes time for meanings to weave into your consciousness.
Less elaborate but just as elegant is Brian Singer’s Geometry #5, vintage books cut and pressed and covered in acrylic and resin until the result looks like a section of parquet flooring. It’s a fine testament to what imagination and vision—as well as a good pair of scissors—can do.
“PaperWorks Refolded” at the Brea Gallery, 1 Civic Center Circle, Ste. 1, Brea, (714) 990-7730; www.breagallery.com. Open Wed.-Sun., noon-5 p.m. Through Sept. 14. $3.
