By Zirrus VanDevere, for the Redoubt Reporter
"Victoriaria" by Victoria Worral
Recently I mentioned that I’d love to see more work from Kaitlin Vadla and Victoria Worral, and already I’ve gotten my wish. They both have a strong showing at the Kenai Fine Arts Center’s group show by current Kenai Peninsula College art students.
Worral’s “Still Life” is especially fascinating, as she chooses to go uber-realistic on the apples, sort of stylized on the glass objects, and very Marc Chagall in the background.
Her self-portrait reflects a dichotomy, it seems, where her forward-facing image has a cold, calculating effect and the side view warms up considerably, and not just because of the deep orange surrounding the side view and not the other. The eyes are doelike in the warm image, very neutral in the other, and the way she chooses to let the ear of the former all but intersect the latter’s eye is psychologically intriguing. Carl Jung would have a nice time of it.
Vadla’s “Hot Rocks” is in an almost extreme vertical format, adding to the effect of the tall orange
"Hot Rocks" by Kaitlin Vadla
cliffs in the foreground that seem like quartz crystalline structures holding a brilliant sunset. The sun is represented in the background, but it is very cool and subtle, especially compared to the other colors in the painting, and it hides behind stylized mountains colored sort of arbitrarily. The mountains’ reflection in the water is handled in a really convincing, naturalistic way, however, so it has some element of psychology, as well. “Redoubt for Georgia O’Keefe” is also done in a mannered or stylized fashion, with arbitrary coloring and objects that seem to float in front of the others.
“Long Past the Brush of Spring” by Sandra Sterling is a revisited image in a new configuration, with a familiar but new-to-this-particular-construct sculpture attached. It is fun to watch an artist explore possibilities in this way. Often, one can find repeated imagery by an artist in one body of work (especially in New York galleries, it seems), but in this case, it crops up in separate exhibits, and it leaves me interested in seeing what the next step will be.
Pam Mersch gives us an exciting pastel drawing called “Ron” that has just the right mix of careful
"Venetian Market" by Brandi Kerley
rendering and free-flowing lines. Her rich color and dramatic shadows make the subject appear sort of mystical and relevant. Jan Sherwood holds back expertly with her watercolor landscapes, which is exactly what one should do with watercolor in order to wow me. She is able to describe so much with such little apparent effort and medium usage that I’m quite impressed, especially with her subtle work titled “Cloud Cover.”
Wendi McCollum’s “Lone Feather” is lovely, but sparse in an entirely different way that is more empty without an obvious intent.
“A Snip at Life” is a Cyanotype by Cathy Taylor, combining skull imagery with scissors. In this process, objects or negatives can be used to imprint material that’s been coated with specific chemicals in order to accept the image onto it using simple UV rays. The printing comes out a cyan blue in the negative areas, hence the cyan reference in the name. It is a technique that Sir John Herschel introduced 1842, and is still usable today,
"A Snip at Life" by Cathy Taylor
although some contemporary artists have utilized complicated and toxic substances to get more intensity out of the imagery.
It honestly just dawned on me that I didn’t even look in “Gallery Two” to see what was going on back there, so I guess another visit to the Kenai Fine Arts Center is in order. The student work will be up through the end of the month.
Zirrus VanDevere is a local mixed-media artist and owns Art Works. She has bachelor’s degrees in fine arts and education.
