"Small Wonders" at Garson Baker Fine Art, New York
Reviewed by Alex Taylor
One of the threads running through this exhibition of paintings and sculpture by 18 artists was modesty. Nevertheless some of the best pieces here offered moments of guarded delight, pinpricks of excitement. The less successful works were so slight as to be almost imperceptible.
A standout was Matt Duffin's Lying in Wait (2008), one of a pair of tiny encaustic paintings on illustration board... Duffin's imagery is scratched out of the work's surface, revealing the white of the board beneath. It presents a nearly empty space, over which hangs a bundle of clothing. Could it be a cliff? The end of a road? Whatever it represents, the image has a threatening air.
Sarah Coleman's three oil-and-gold-leaf paintings on wood panel capturing the sky--at dawn, dusk, and full moonbeam darkness--were subtly varied in color. From a distance the surface of the work looked flat and unvarying; up close it was all vapor and atmospherics.
The artist Faye Schoolcraft resourcefully makes frisky figurines of women, and she tightly binds steel wool or cotton, depending on the statue, around each of their frames. Part of the sculpture's interest lies in the way they are constructed... however... Schoolcraft's art managed to capture the spirit--as well as the occasional thinness--of the exhibition.