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September 25 to October 30th, 2004
John Neff | images | interview
Travels Between the 1st and 3rd Dimensions
+PLUS:
Sally Ann Rowland
Travels between the First and Third Dimensions at Western Exhibitions is JOHN NEFF'S first Chicago solo show since relocating to the Bay Area in 2003, and his first solo show with Western Exhibitions.
Neff will be showing reliefs, flat panels on the horizontal or the vertical axis that twist into three-dimensions. The panels are ceramic tile mosaics and/or metalworks in brass, lead, and steel. Most incorporate pre-made decorative objects like tiles, vases, and small representational sculptures. Many of the panels have a nominal function: table, fan, heater, doorbell, ashtray...decoration. These panels reflect a subtle shift from the concerns of the works on paper presented in Neff's last solo show at Chicago's Suitable Gallery in 2002. Those pieces, small-scale paper collages, dealt with private, cloistered worlds. The relief panels are more outward-looking, and refer, sometimes blatantly and sometimes obliquely, to current events and to Neff's day-to-day life, particularly his interactions with his sister, a mosaicist.
In Western Exhibitions Plus gallery, SALLY-ANN ROWLAND in her first Chicago solo show, takes advantage of the stereotypically feminine art of cross-stitching. Depicting botanical subjects, the beautifully executed hand-sewn samplers render flora that have both healing and toxic properties. The samplers are punctuated by staccato bursts of confrontational text: "I Can't Understand" stitched beside the roots and berries of the deadly nightshade, and "Fuck everybody" beneath a representation of the Death Angel mushroom. The samplers hint at frustration, anger, and destruction lying under the cover of beauty. Amidst these wall works, the floor sculpture "A Perfect Day" - toy sailboats resting upon mirrored seas contained in a child's beach bucket -- presents a moment of tranquility.
ALL IMAGES © WESTERN EXHIBITIONS & EACH INDIVIDUAL ARTIST