Tom Berg + Lucinda Cobley + Jill Moser
Peter Sacks + Mark Williams + Zachariah Riek
at Wade Wilson Art through September 30
by Todd Camplin
Wade Wilson Art is showing some heroically epic paintings. I enjoy large abstract paintings
like those of the 1950’s Abstract Expressionist Pollack or Rothko, so I really enjoyed this show
of artists Tom Berg, Lucinda Cobley, Jill Moser, Peter Sacks, Mark Williams, and Zachariah Riek.
Abstract art somehow seem to works better on a larger scale. I was already quite fond of Jill
Moser and Mark Williams before this show, but Lucinda Cobley and representational odd
man out Tom Berg caught my eye. I was already quite fond of Jill Moser and Mark Williams
before this show, but Lucinda Cobley and representational odd man out Tom Berg caught my eye.
Jill Moser is a superstar artist extraordinaire. She works and reworks her surface to leave hints
of paintings left from the paint-and-wipe process. The works look like abstract calligraphy
trying to convey an ancient message, but which we are unable to decipher. Like the philosopher
Wittgenstein, Moser has a personal language that translates in every expressive
mark she makes.
I am familiar with Mark Williams’ work because I have seen a few shows of his work at a Dallas
gallery. I think Williams’ art finally converted me to a minimalist lover. I had been on the fence
for years debating the beauty and power behind a few lines and shapes of color, but something
clicked in me when I observed Williams’ elegant use of lines. I felt calm and a moment of inspired
mediation occurred right there in front of his work. I get goose bumps thinking about it, because
not soon after I went to the Rothko Chapel and had that very same feeling, only magnified and
reached inside of me. I don’t think this would have happened if I hadn’t seen Williams’ art first.
Lucinda Cobley is an artist I had not seen before, but I am happy to get familiar. I like the
stripes and lines on the canvas. The paintings are simple compositions, but incredibly
elegant in color and texture. The layers of paint feel thick in places and smoothly brushed
in other places. I hear music in these pieces, the colors acts as notes and the white spaces
act as rests.
Tom Berg interreges me, not because he was the only representational artist, but because I was
transfixed on how minimal this work really was and how similar in composition the work was to
Cobley’s work. The chairs break the ground in an odd way that draws you to think the floor is
really just a shape and not a floor. The background is gridded out in such a way that you
could imagine that the so called wall was just a shape as well. This just leaves the chairs,
which are geometric and brake up the spaces, like Williams’ lines break up his paintings.
I thought this work by Berg was representational, but now I am beginning to wonder
about my assumptions.
Peter Sacks and Zachariah Riek also round out the show with their own abstractions in large
scale. Wade Wilson Art’s exhibition of Large-Scale: The Painting Show will run until September
30. Go see these massive paintings and if your luck you might have a moment that changes
the way you think about art.
Large-Scale: The Painting Show Featuring Tom Berg, Lucinda Cobley, Jill Moser, Peter Sacks, Mark Williams, and welcoming new gallery artist Zachariah Rieke.
August
27 -
September
30 2011
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