The Poetry of Pia Fries

I have the Pizzuti Collection to thank for introducing me to the work of Swiss painter Pia Fries. Though widely shown and awarded in Europe, her work is in only three public collections in the US: the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Detroit Institute of Art, and the Albright-Knox Museum in Buffalo. The Pizzuti's like her: The subject of this post isn't her only work in their collection. Perhaps we will see even more. I will hope. 

Pia Fries, one of five panels, Les Aquarelles de Leningrad,
2003, oil paint and facsimile on panel, 31-1/2 x 23-5/8."
(Print subject: Red geraniums and butterflies)

One of the most delectable moments of the current Now-ism show is Fries' five-panel work of paint and collage on wood, "Les Aquarelles de Leningrad," "The Leningrad Watercolors."

Each panel of blonde wood, planed to serene smoothness, has attached to it a print torn in half. (These are plates from an early 19th century book of botanical watercolors.) The halves are positioned in different ways vis-a-vis each other from painting to painting. Their placement sets the stage for extravagant, luscious streams, snakes, ridges and ribbons of oil paint, laid down with the élan of a pastry chef—Fries is sure to have used some of the same techniques and similar tools. 

The painting shown to the right includes all the elements that Fries combines in each of the panels: the torn botanical print and mounded  paint (not spread), raising the surface high above the board. There are soft, translucent designs directly on the wood that are made by oil paint so thinned that it appears like a stilled flow, as if it were marbled paper, or prepared microscope slides of simple wetlands plant life.

Pia Fries, one of five panels, Les Aquarelles de Leningrad,
2003, oil paint and facsimile on panel, 31-1/2 x 23-5/8."
(Print subject: caterpillar and moths on flowering plant)

Fries responds to the content and palette of the print with paint. But she does not engage in imitation of nature as we expect painters to do from a very long tradition of representation in various degrees of exactitude. Fries uses paint as construction material abstractly—suggestively—to imitate the shapes of the botanical and zoological life depicted on the collaged prints.  

I find it delicious that in the two paintings shown, the expression can strike us as both very abstract and strikingly literal. Above at the right, a stem breaks the print and muscles its way up to end in a crimson flower that pushes beyond the frame. The vitality is enormous, and it is buoyant too, thanks to the vernal green and brilliant yellow that shake off the shades from which the blossom emerges.

So too with the painting to the left, Fries uses her paint to imitate the subject of the print, which shows a caterpillar and moths. She creates her own, the worm ascending just as the one in the collaged picture does.

Pia Fries, detail from Les Aquarelles de
Leningrad

Pia Fries, detail from Les Aquarelles de Leningrad

From an angle, one can appreciate just how "real"—how substantial, how present, almost living—are the forms that Fries posits with paint. These aren't the result of trial and error, but of serene certainty: of a divine improvisation, it's so fearless. Her creation of reality from masses of paint is also rich, as in wealthy, confident that there is and will always be a sufficiency. Again, there is a divine confidence, a creative urge that takes your breath away.

Pia Fries, Les Aquarelles de Leningrad, 2003, oil paint and facsimile on panel, five panels, each 31-1/2 x 23-5/8."

These paintings, magnificent in their combined delicacy and assurance, attract the viewer to themselves by their rapturous rhythm of design and color. From across the gallery, they dance with an abandon of gesture that makes an irresistible invitation. Long before the eye can discern their botanical, sylvan, springtime subjects, the body knows them. They are a dance of sophisticated and elaborately choreographed gestures, costumed with flowing, dramatic garments. 

Pia Fries, detail from Les Aquarelles de
Leningrad

Fries' suite of paintings is so beautiful and so sensual that one can be completely satisfied simply with her bravura mastery of her materials. The power and freedom of her composition and her raw creativity are sources of infinite delight.

But beyond even the powerful appeal to body and eye, Fries' work packs an enormous punch to the understanding of what painting is; of what we mean by artistic representation; and of how we denominate the real and the represented—what's art and what's nature.

In Les Aquarelles de Leningrad, Fries seems to start with the proposition that the printed plates are already two removes from their natural subjects. They aren't watercolors at all: Any freshness of plant or insect—any connection to life that the original paintings may have had is gone by the time they have been translated into prints. The colors and unpredictability of the subjects are long gone. What relationship do these detailed, "accurate" representations of nature bear to their distant, living originals?

Pia Fries, one of five panels, Les Aquarelles de Leningrad,
2003, oil paint and facsimile on panel, 31-1/2 x 23-5/8."
(Print subject: caterpillar and moths on flowering plant)

In the space—"on the ground"—between the halved print, Fries goes not on a mission to find a better way to represent those flower- or butterfly- subjects. Representation is, of course, what we expect painters to do with their wonderful medium. Even abstract expressionist painters represent something, even if it is not tangible. Through the medium of paint, artists translate the real into Art.

Fries, though, uses her brave applications of paint to attempt creation of Reality from art "originals." Starting with the prints that are twice-removed from nature, she takes an approach that is in truth divine. She models organisms that have dimension, movement, and vigor pulsing through them. Her paint creatures/creations are suffused with an uncanny life that does not "capture" growth, movement and natural color, but performs them.

Once created, though, there's no getting around the fact that her beautiful lives have become art. But are they are like the printed watercolors? You can't close the book on these. They are specimens for a natural history museum; they come as close as a human can come to making a living thing. 

Is this Dr. Frankenstein? Is this a cloning experiment? I don't think so. It is a phenomenal exploration, though, of raw creativity; a fearless trip to the intersection of "real" and "artistic" or, as many like to say, "false." Fries is close to breaking the sound barrier in her headily original work. How magnificent I find the idea of breaking through two levels of flat representation to make life from oil paint; to evade traditional representation with an aggressive ideal of creativity. 

I can't get enough of art at this level: beautiful, masterful with materials and technique, and wildly ambitious in thought.

Brian Porray's Big Picture at the Pizzuti Collection

It's too dazzling—too mind-bending—for even this writer to begin by wondering what it's all about. Brian Porray's painting, "|===FL4M3JOB===/", is on display until February on the first floor of the Pizzuti Collection's Now-ism show in Columbus. When I visit, it's the only work in the building. Who needs more? It's a mesmerizing world in itself. Measuring 96" x 216" (that's 8 x 18 feet), it's Porray's madcap world in two-an-a-half dimensions. Both nosed right up to it or standing across the room, the viewer is sucked right into its brilliant, revved up, op-art vortices. If it's a planet rotating on its own wonky axis, then we are zooming asteroids, drawn on collision course by its inexorable gravity field. 

Brian Porray, "|===FL4M3JOB===/", 2011. Synthetic polymer, spray paint, paper on canvas. 96 x 216."

The central section unfurls in a folding curve like an Oriental fan. It pulses with excitement like the gaudy, lit-up neon night on a crowded Tokyo street. Since we are stuck in the gallery with movement available in only one plane, the painting does the three-dimensional moving for us. Our heads swivel up and down; we look far into the distance; we may be looking into the cosmos via mysterious satellite signals. We are, at the least, the out-of-town gawkers dazzled by the colors, the brilliance, the heights. Those fanned, mashed-together columnar forms feel like skyscrapers crammed together, each refusing to be in the shadow of any other.

Brian Porray, detail, "|===FL4M3JOB===/", 2011.

Brian Porray, detail, "|===FL4M3JOB===/", 2011.

From across the room, this painting is an ebullient composition that mixes brilliant color with black and white. Close up, one sees that the black and white background  is created by what I take to be sticky-backed shelf paper with an endlessly repeated design. Grids of alternating white and black squares melt at the edges into framed spheres. This optical illusion underlies the fascination with geometrical forms—strict or skewed—that guide the eye through every neighborhood of the painting and across the whole. 

Brian Porray, detail, "|===FL4M3JOB===/", 2011.

Porray revels in geometrical games like this, testing our intuitive comprehension of perspective with silly signals and crafty cues that block it. He swings between meticulously presented geometrical forms and big, sloppy brush strokes applied devil-may-care that deny any concern with order.

Brian Porray, detail, "|===FL4M3JOB===/",
 2011.

Those detailed geometrical shapes, like the concentric circles framed by the square, and the sparkling disco sphere, in details above, are collaged paper additions to the painting. The many collaged bits sit right on the surface, unprotected by layers of varnish. They could be in a scrapbook: You see their edges and detect their matte surfaces clearly. As you go back and forth, investigating this great painting, you find all sorts of amusing collage elements that either reinforce the spatial weirdness (like the disco ball) or delight like a joke—note the tiny microphone and shades nestled away in a red hat on the left. These details balance the effect of the work's sheer size. It's a feat in itself that Porray creates and maintains such levity and such joy in a canvas of extraordinary size. Size tends to read as seriousness. He got over this assumption in a big way.

Brian Porray, detail, "|===FL4M3JOB===/",
 2011.

Another of Porray's surprising achievements is that "|===FL4M3JOB===/", for all its dynamism and futuristic feel, is very much a hand-made object. I find it thrilling that a work so hard and bright in appearance shows the artist's light touch. The fact that the collage elements are bare; that the spray painted swipes feel so delirious, and that the almost imperceptible layering is so cunning bespeak Porray's courage and craftsman.  

As one illustration of Porray's pains-taking, notice the paint drips all across the painting. In the photo to the right and in several above paint drips are visible. In the full view, it's clear that Porray uses drips a lot. On inspection, though, it's rarely clear where the drips actually begin, for their sources are usually disguised by new layers of collage. The reader may have to look very closely to find these, but red drips are apparent in the gray column toward the right, in the triangle-based column to its left, and about half-way up the column with diagonal stripes.

This is a mind-boggling work. How can an artist make a work that is so large, make it so electric, so vibrant, yet manage to do it over the immense amount of time it would take to make it? To create the effect of explosion, of a "flame job," over the period of months or years—to keep that energy alive—takes truly herculean effort involving as much frustration as sense of victory.

The more closely one observes the details of such a piece, the more respect one has for the patient craftsmanship and for the vast conceptual ability of the artist. The balance between his initial idea, serendipity, and improvisation is supremely difficult to maintain. Doubt and fatigue can undermine judgment over the long term.

We often forget, as viewers, to imagine this big picture, and to get lost criticizing details. When a work of art is as spectacularly successful on every level as something of this proportion, the achievement isn't the painting, but the gift transmitted through it of the artist's deep attention, deep thought, and extraordinary commitment to work. 

Thank you, Brian Porray.

Whizz-Bang! Ebullient "Now-ism" at the Pizzuti Collection

Anselm Reyle, untitled, 2011.Mixed media on canvas, 89-5/8 x 88-5/8." View as one enters the building.

Everything about the second season's show at the Pizzuti Collection astounds and thrills. Ron and Ann Pizzuti, exuberant collectors of contemporary art, have turned their own house inside out so that lucky we can live with its splendors until June of 2015. The only things missing among this abundance of singular, beautiful, and high-spirited work are fainting couches and fans: Some of us may grow dizzy, exploring the carnival of brilliant colors, optical illusions, innovations and subversions inside this show's sparking energy field. 

This is the first show I've seen in which every work included was made in the 21st century: What a wonderful surprise this was to me. The Pizzuti's have been the first believers and buyers for many of these artists. The couple has been collecting others for a long time. Everything in the show was picked with love and appreciation, not only with an eye to market value. But when you're at the show, you won't have to be told that: The investment in pleasure is more than evident.

Dion Johnson, Moonlight, 2009. Acrylic on
linen, 72 x 48."

Detail, Johnson's Moonlight, showing how the
 linen'sweave modulates each color,
undercuttingthe illusion of "solid color"
bands.

I'll be writing more in the future about individual pieces and artists in the show. Here, I want to convey a sense of the vivacity that makes Now-ism so irresistible. Whatever turn you make toward a new gallery, or up the stairs, a bold, big, and brilliantly colored work greets you. If painting had hips, their hands would be on them, luring you with their defiant self-confidence, with their smirking mysteries.

The show is hung with an eye for these bravura moments. Whenever you decide to move along, you are put in the position of encountering a simplified, high-impact visual event. Each of these explosions of color and intrigue—each a feast in itself—merely opens the door to a room of excitement. There's always more to come, as my future posts about this show will illustrate.

Brian Porray, "!===FL4M3JOB===/", 2011. Synthetic polymet, spray paint, paper
on canvas. 96 x 216."

But the message that Now-ism calls from every lobby, landing, and portal is, "Come this way; come in; we want you here!" The building's gray, cool, low-affect interior does not simply not compete with the works, it actively supports their brilliance by contrasting effectively with them.

One of the truly fabulous moments is turning south from the first floor lobby and catching a view of Brian Porray's aptly named, "1===FL4M3JOB===/". Aptly-named, I say, because I'm probably not the only person rendered speechless by the size, brilliance, hilarity, and aggressive inscrutability of this painting. Its detail, viewed through the neutral lobby passage is like finding a playmate when you've been alone indoors for a week.

This is a treat that only grows, for as you approach the room, and  enter it, you discover that the painting is over twice the size you'd come to expect. It's hard not to burst out in laughs of simple high spirits when you step into the room, the work is so immense, bright, and bursting with life. It's a room of it's own; it's a life of its own in which any viewer can spend days, moving back and forth across the room for views far away—it's like intergalactic space—or close up, when it looks, despite dribbles of paint and other crude lapses of technique, like samples of the well-wrought handicrafts in paper or quilting cotton or enamel.

In door, Sarah Cain, Kiss, 3013, acrylic, beads, and string on canvas. In foyer,
Jim Hodges, Constellation of an Ordinary Day, 2002. Wood and metal panel,
ceramic sockets and lightbulbs,  in two parts.

Advancing up the stairs to the third floor, the visitor ascends into another vivid and playful scene, this time composed of two works that may as well have been installed by an interior decorator, they make such a playful and pretty pair.

This feels definitely to me as if I've come to a feminine quarter, pink and polka dotted, pastel undercoated until Cain's black band and big, red X remind us that Pirate Jenny was a girl too. Once you've passed the light installation, you can no longer see the two pieces at one time. But this lovely entrance—up the stairs and across the landing—left their similarities in my mind. The diamond shapes, the rounds with spaces between them, the dark spots mixed with light ones: These similarities left the memory of each in the other.

There are so many reasons to venture forth into the world of contemporary art, and the Pizzutis' Now-ism makes as simple and direct a case as possible for doing show. How could any show be more fun than this? Why should you go? Because you like pink. Because you like shiny things. Because you like dramatic things, or puzzles, or things that make you laugh. This is a high-spirited, high-jinx show, where every doorway and every gallery is an invitation made as alluring as possible. This is definitely a show to bring children to, for they nearly always have to right attitude around art like this. Ask them what it's about: They'll have an answer. But you'll enjoy it anyway, even without child guides. See it soon so you'll have lots of chances to go back.

Self portrait of the writer in Anselm Reyle's, untitled, 2011

Grand Opening of the Pizzuti Collection

 "Coming from the point of view of a passionate collector, the Pizzuti Collection seeks to present art by underrepresented voices from around the globe with work that transcends, elevates the mind and expresses freedoms.

The Pizzuti Collection shares the belief of its founder that art is fundamental to the individual and the cultural health of a community. It feeds the spirit, challenges the mind and stimulates thought."

How much better can it get? This is the mission statement of The Pizzuti Collection, just opened on the 6th and 7th of September in Columbus. Ron and Ann Pizzuti have been collecting contemporary art for decades and have just launched a venue—a handsomely restored, three-story, neoclassical building—for rotating shows of their treasures.  

632 North Park Street, Columbus, Ohio: The Pizzuti Collection

The building, opposite lovely Goodale Park, situated among the Victorian dwellings of the chic Short North neighborhood, has a European air about it that places it in piquant contrast to Ohio's other architecture-driven venues for contemporary art. Neither Ohio State's Wexner Center for the Arts (Peter Eisenman, 1989), Cincinnati's Contemporary Arts Center (Zaha Hadid, 2003), and the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland (Farshid Moussavi, 2012) has a permanent collection, but each schedules exhibitions curated locally or elsewhere and traveling. The Pizzuti—with its traditional painted iron fence, fine pea stone sculpture garden, and symmetrical facade—offers us a unique invitation to get close to works over the long term. Through them, we will come to know the collector's thought and sensibilities: That in itself should reveal to the patient observer a good deal about contemporary art.

For the opening, the Collection's director and curator, Rebecca Ibel, has

Douglas Perez (b. 1972)Ladacar III, 2010     Oil on canvas
88 1/2 x 63 in. 

Los Carpinteros

Kosmaj Toy, 2012     

wood, metal and LEGO® bricks

98 1/8 x 98 1/8 x 98 1/8 in.

organized Cuban Forever, a show of fifteen Cuban artists. Some have been working since the time of the Revolution (Tony Mendez, recently retired from Ohio State) and some are up-to-the-minute artists—Raul Cordero and Alexandre Arrechea, both of whom spoke in an inaugural panel. Some immerse themselves in the timeless look of Havana (Michael Eastman) and others demonstrate interests that are entirely cosmopolitan or theoretical.

The Inaugural Show itself includes some of the Pizzutis' earliest and dearest acquisitions, even a few moved directly from their house. These include works by well-known masters Frank Stella, Louise Nevelson, Jean Dubuffet, John Chamberlain, and Richard Tuttle.

LEFT: Frank Stella (b. 1936), Targowica III, 1973.Felt and acrylic paint on Tri-Wall cardboard. 122 x 96 x 8 in.

CENTER: Richard Tuttle (b. 1941), New Mexico, New York, #3, 1998. Arylic on fir plywood, 26 1/4 x 20 1/2 in. 

RIGHT: Frank Stella (b. 1936), 

Norisring, 1982. M

ixed media on etched aluminum

But what do all these names mean if you don't know their work already? The Old Masters of contemporary art remain unknown or inexplicable to many. Of course, the Old Masters of the Dutch 17th century are just as mysterious to most, but, being representational, they puzzle and irk us less obviously. We don't feel the mixture of hostility and embarrassment that contemporary art induces in its apparent opacity.

It feeds the spirit, challenges the mind and stimulates thought. 

My opening day experience of the Pizzuti Collection was wholly satisfying. After about an hour—more than enough time spent inside any museum or gallery—I stepped back into the flow of life on Park Street feeling my body and brains in dizzy tumult. I was boiling with outrage, contempt, laughter, scorn, puzzlement, frustration. I had even conceived a crush or two. I was seeing red—and neon pink, and jungle camouflage. My head ached.

And I can't wait to go back! I'll take this collection as it invites us to take it: slowly, a piece or two at a time. Because contemporary art comes from so many directions, with so many premises, concepts, and styles, no one should be able to do a walk-through and leave feeling unexercised, mentally or emotionally. In passing I saw works I thought were simplistic or disposable; I saw others that I could lose myself in for an afternoon, and some that made me woozy with wonder. A few made no sense at all to me: I felt no connection of any sort. Next time, I'll feel compelled to take those on as a detective approaches a case, or as a fighter circles a crafty opponent in the ring. 

The biggest thing about my hour at the Pizzuti opening was coming out feeling such strong, conflicted, elevated, engaged emotions. I wanted to argue, to make someone to explain; to steam open elusive works until their mysteries arose, vaporously, above them.

Dave Cole (b. 1975), American Flag (Lead), 2012. Lead sheet and stainless steel cable, handsewn. 28 x 52 1/2 in.

Agitation of any nature is a fine outcome for a visit to an art museum. We too routinely expect a museum visit to parallel a visit to a garden where all is comely and beautifully arranged. We expect to leave unruffled and uplifted in a general way, untroubled by challenges to our world-views.

Contemporary art isn’t a poke in the eye. It’s not an insult. But it reflects how someone else in our world is dealing with an issue in and of the times we share. In most cases, we already recognize the artist’s topic and materials.

Through the time we spend with contemporary art we can pause to be citizens of the world, to involve ourselves momentarily in ideas, visions, and points of view we'd hasten by on the street. Will such encounters always make us happy in the moment? Not necessarily. But our passions and our eyes awaken in a structured place where our minds are sharpened. Does it make us happier in the aftermath, to be surprised with wonder and beauty of the unexpected? To be roughed up by the outre; to be electrified or amused by the unlikely? Absolutely.

Welcome to our city's new playground; to its new cloister; to its half-way house for philosophers and punks. Thank you to the Pizzutis for sharing their purchases with the city and the world; for knowing the real value of art which, wisely invested in the lives of all their lucky neighbors, creates and enriches a thinking community.

LEFT: Enrique Martínez Celaya (b. 1964), The Two Worlds, 2007. Oil and wax on canvas, 92 x 118 in.    

RIGHT: Douglas Perez (b. 1972), Ahorrativo, 2010. Oil on canvas, 94/ x 63 in. 

FOREGROUND: Yoan Capote (b. 1977), 

Open Mind, 2009. 

Cut aluminum, 36 1/4 x 49 5/8 x 49 5/8 in., 

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

All photographs courtesy of The Pizzuti Collection.

Life Process: Hiroe Saeki at the Pizzuti Collection

It's not going too far to suggest that any viewer, of any age or acquaintance with art, will react with dropped jaw to Hiroe Saeki's three mixed-media drawings in the Pizzuti Collection's Teasers show. Some form of the question, "How could she have done that?" will leap to mind, or its variant, "I could never do that!" While the second is probably true, it would be too bad to leave the first as merely rhetorical: There's a lot of fascination in Saeki's process.

Hiroe Saeki, Untitled ("Center"), 17.7" x17.7," graphite and acrylic on paper,  2008.
Courtesy of the Pizzuti Collection

 Alas, the three 17.7" square works on paper are poorly hung in this show. They occupy the dimmest corner of a small room and their Plexiglas boxes distractingly reflect everything around them—the neighboring Kara Walker video, and the swirling Suling Wang abstract drawing opposite. Saeki's virtuosity is mesmerizing; that it remains so through a lot of major environmental impediments is powerful testimony to the fascination it exerts.

The list of materials on the labels for Saeki's works do not mention "graphite." But that's clearly the material that composes the undulating soft masses—the "clouds"—of gray. The color and sheen, the absorption into the paper, are all characteristic of the material.  Graphite is often delivered to large areas by broad bars or in powder form. Powdered graphite is particularly useful for achieving effects like Saeki's: We see the imprints of the artist's fingertips, which have rubbed accumulations of graphite into the paper both to produce lighter and and darker value, and to thin out its application on sections of the paper.

Hiroe Saeki, Untitled ("Right"), 17.7" x17.7," graphite and acrylic on paper,  2008.
Courtesy of the Pizzuti Collection

What the labels do specify is that the artist used pencil. This tells us that Saeki created these great masses of gray by accumulations of small strokes of graphite, all except a very few of which have been obliterated by rubbing and blending. (One detects discrete pencil strokes along the bottoms of "Right" and "Center,"  They also emerge in energetic tiny shoots from the margins of the gray/white lines in "Left" and "Right."

To think of Saeki's covering pages with tiny pencil strokes will inevitably bring "obsessive-compulsive" to the lips of some for whom such repetitious application is a sure sign of abnormality. But if we attach ourselves in imagination to the hand that holds the pencil, do we really find ourselves acting from a bizarre compulsion? Wouldn't we, rather, be moving with contemplative study and care?

Hiroe Saeki, Untitled ("Left"), 17.7" x17.7," graphite and acrylic on paper,  2008.
Courtesy of the Pizzuti Collection

Floating in some indeterminate spatial relationship to the graphite clouds are tiny circles, sometimes single and sometimes massed like molecules. It's tempting to call these "bubbles" except that they are described by unexpressive line only—unshaded—so that they are distinctly two-dimensional events. Whether they are part of the gray "clouds" or are spatially separate and exist as a scrim before them (if so, by how far?) is uncertain.

white circles/bubbles (author photo)

Were Saeki to have defined the gray areas by the use of graphite by bar or powder with less effort, she would have had to cover too much paper. the coverage of the paper would have been less under he control. It would have been impossible to retain the virgin white areas required for describing those white circles. Each is outlined with fine-point pencil, and the dark background meets its edges precisely. Only by precise application—use of the pointed pencil—would it have been possible to leave the white.

visible pencil strokes at edge (author photo)

The ability of the hand to illuminate the mind cannot be overstated. When my own hand tries to imagine Saeki's, carefully moving across those pages, poised to avoid smudging, sometimes creating density and sometimes the delicacy of "Left's" black-to-white edge, I'm aware how this work would quickly become the sort of meditation that softens one's breathing and cleanses the mind. This work is not obsessive; it's an induced state of being, a reflection that is its own experience independent of the artifact—a completed drawing—that will emerge at some future point.

As the work continues for the artist committed to the calm and patient course, how the stakes go up! When does a plan or goal emerge, as it must? Then, what constitutes error in the composition? Does the plan include the end, or does it remain to be discovered, all of a sudden?

detail from "Left"
author photo

Saeki's pencil draws a medium, environment, or background for events executed in spring-colored twists of acrylic paint. In "Left," the paint is applied as two thick vertical strokes that have the presence of foreground figures. In "Center," an amorphous, filmy creature appears to be suspended in its gray medium. The paint in "Right" is spatially different, caught between planes of the white circles.

The painted passages of the three drawings appear as quickly executed as the graphite appears the opposite. Saeki provides not only contrast, but the drama of extraordinary daring since the paint effaces large areas of the what has been so painstakingly accomplished.

Saeki's willingness to present together the labor in graphite and the intuitive fortunes of paint underscores the depth and seriousness of her work. The wisdom to value without overvaluing the meditative, repetitious movements, combined with the courage to use them as a basis for bold acts of insight—this strikes me as constituting a mature ethic.

Ultimately, I think Saeki's drawings, while touching on questions fascinating to Art—representations of three-dimensional space, techniques in chosen materials, process of composition—are exquisite examples of life and art allied. Whether Saeki's outlook on contemplation and action nurtured her artistic process; or if her thoughtful process has crystallized this connection between constancy and decisiveness I cannot know. But the relationship is indisputably modeled in the work.

Breathtaking work like Saeki's—work that contemplates core issues of how we live—is available to anyone who walks through the open gallery door—and looks.