Neighbors In Sacramento and Time: Two Contemporary Artists on Display at the Tim Collom and B. Sakata Garo

In downtown Sacramento, two wonderful shows of contemporary artists are being held in nearby galleries of the B. Sakata Garo and the Tim Collum galleries. While both artists work in differing media, style and purpose, they both offer great examples of the character of contemporary art.

The first show I visited was titled Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form: Meditations on the Heart Sutra, featuring the work of William Ishmael at the Tim Collom gallery. Ishmael, an artist local to California, creates work with a range of materials from paint to plexiglass that explores and attempts to understand Buddhist philosophies. This show, as suggested by the title, explores a concept he found in the Heart Sutra- that form is emptiness and emptiness is form. The work tended to have an earthy, weathered appearance, with rough texture and earth-tones, and this went well with the rustic bricks of the gallery. There were, however, smoother, cleaner looking works, which were generally allowed a separate space where there were white walls, so the aesthetic differences didn't conflict.

At first glance, some his works- especially the paintings- bear strong resemblance to what one might call abstract expressionism. Paint spatters and shatters over the canvas, or a lone circle radiates in the center. Some of the works even bear resemblance to minimalist works, such as the plexiglas piece "Emptiness is Form (magenta/violet)" or the sand and latex works on panel, both taking the form of simple rectangles within rectangles.  However, unlike an abstract expressionist or minimalist work, Ishmael's works are rooted deeply in conceptualism and theory, each a meditation and expression of an idea beyond its form. The funny thing is that his work is, in a way, rejecting formalist ideas of art as pure form by specifically exploring the idea of form and it's transient, indefinite nature.

The works were supplemented with small panels that described the thought process that underlies an individual or group of pieces. According to the artist, the works that best expressed his concept were his layered plexiglass works. Clear rectangles with stains suspended a few inches apart from each other create something like a three-dimensional painting when viewed head on, but from the side all that can be seen is the thin edge of the glass. His other plexiglass pieces explored this in a different way, where the negative space in the center of a rectangle could be understood as a form just as well as the actual form. There was also a three-piece collection of ceramic vase-like cylinder forms which illustrated the concept of form being defined by the emptiness that the clay wrapped around. There was even a ceramic bowl of buttons that seemed to create their own form, but the viewer was invited to breach this supposed mass by sticking their hand in.

His other works  that seemed easiest to dismiss as meaningless abstractions did indeed continue the exploration of Buddhist concepts, as well influences of theoretical physics.  The idea of fragments as part of a true whole can be seen in his abstract paintings that are displayed evenly spaced as if part of a unified series of individuals, but could easily be imagined as one large work. Others rely on the viewer's contemplation, allowing for multiple conclusions to be made. For me, the abstract forms tended to evoke the intricacies of natural phenomena, like cracks in the earth or patterns created by shattered ice. The artist gave examples of other possible interpretations; the movement of energy on a micro level and cosmic formations on a macro , and to me these all seem to relate to the idea of similar patterns in the matter of the universe on all levels. These works draw on multiple interpretations,very much like the concept behind Neo-geo works that put minimalism on its head by suggesting that the simple, abstract forms have multiple meanings reliant on history and the present that could not be divorced from it.

A few buildings down, the B Sakata Garo housed "Collaborations" , the gouache and collage works of Betsy Kendall. The title alludes the fact that each painting was from a figure drawing session, and therefore a collaboration. Kendall writes about the show on her website, "Because all beings collaborate in our present moment, all parts contribute."

The show had a simple, humble feeling to it. Each colorful and expressive scene lined the gallery walls, evenly spaced and grouped with same-size works. Some were in clean shiny frames but others were mounted on panel with rough assemblage elements. Small white rectangles of cardboard gave information on the work, and some appeared to be smudged with charcoal, as if they came from the same figure drawing session as the paintings.

Kendall's works seem to follow in the tradition of Neo-expressionism. Her figures and the space they occupy are painted in a loose and expressive fashion, full of colorful line, texture, and large fields of color, and are easy on the rendering of light and shadow. Reminiscent of the artist Joan Brown, these paintings would look right at home in the "Bad" Painting exhibition held in 1978- which of course isn't to say they're bad, just that they turn from classical conventions for the sake of personal expression. This personal expression of Kendall's contributes to the overall feeling of narrative that a simple figure painting may not have otherwise. She captures her figures in interesting moments and highlights relationships to the setting, such as in "Rattle of the Bones". 

Here, the model leans and stares ahead, clutching her foot, while the head sculptures in the background appear to stare in the same direction. The white of the heads is repeated in the decision to make the left breast a pale color, disjointed from the rest of the figure. In all of her paintings, many details of the moment are left in, such as fellow artists at work, other artworks, or general clutter. These details work with the figure to activate and contextualize the scenes, giving them an intriguing reality as a confluence of many things.

This one was titled "Jazzy Odalisque", an amusing reference to Ingres "Grand Odalisque". Why is this loosely painted model so much more real?

I found these works both intriguing and a joy to look at. I also enjoyed Ishmael's works; my first reaction to them was unsure, but as I looked further and read to understand what the artist was exploring, I started to get it and see how the ideas unified the work. While each show was distinctly different from the other, it was interesting to see them side by side. One was earthy, highly conceptual and meditative, the other bright and revealing the narrative of a moment, but both held onto an idea for the work beyond their formal elements. 

"Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form: Meditations on the Heart Sutra" will be up March 6 – April 5, 2018, and "Collaborations" will be up March 6 - March 31 .