"Expanded Visions" chronicles the visions of several brilliant (perhaps even demented) minds in a time period significant to us all -- the 70s and 80s. Andy Warhol's "Campbell's Soup Can" be damned -- these works actually have some creative energy and personality.
One of the exhibit's central themes is the way in which artists are able to use ceramic in innovative ways. Attention to detail makes the works seem like paintings stretched into three dimensions. Casual viewers may not detect the subtle layers and details etched into the colorful pieces, although each of them deserves careful scrutiny.
The highlight of the exhibit is David Gilhooly's spacey, jubilant and mythological "Frog World" art. Gilhooly fabricated an elaborate "Frog World" history for his sculptures, which range from a human heart beneath two perching pigeons to Biblical arks carrying gigantic animals. All of these pieces involve food of some sort, which is fitting for the visually delicious imagery.
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"Jelly Belly Bear in Ark" shows a giddy bear sailing in an "absolutely unsinkable" ark with another creature, Merfrog, as its mast. He is carrying a cargo of rainbow-colored jellybeans and has a large blue fish swimming underneath the boat.
"Big Moose Expands into Chicken Burgers" has the most humorous title and is possibly the goofiest of his sculptures. The outlandish work illustrates a moose on an ark surrounded by not-so-conventional fast food. The sea of hamburgers surrounding the ark contains assorted items within the buns including beef patties in the form of frightened-looking live fish or chickens.
More closely related to his "Frog World" mythos, "Breadfrog Delivering Bagels" features a frog composed of poppy seed bagel dough delivering an assortment of poppy seed bagels in his ark, some of which are stuffed with cream cheese. Pigeons roost on his head as he is mounted cleverly on a tree stump, suggesting he never will make it out to sea.
Ken Little's work also is fascinating. His minimalism makes great use of collected discarded materials. He makes our trash his treasures with his brilliant sculptures.
Little's "Burnin' and Bakin'" is easy to view from a number of angles. It is a multi-colored house with a caricatured woman on top. Composed entirely of ceramic plate shards and chunks of pottery, it is easy to characterize as a metaphor for mothers in broken homes, but it requires a closer look.
Not necessarily a negative or condescending statement about working mothers or housewives, the piece is composed of discarded fragments, showing how it is possible to create beauty from garbage.
"Air" does not seem to be as complex, although its diversity in source materials is. It shows a sheep posed as a buckin' bronco, its neck twisted around. It is made of dozens of different leather items such as gloves, belts and boots and is precariously balanced on a house also made of blue leather and gloves. Barely visible, the fragmented ceramic house from "Burnin' and Bakin'" is balanced on the sheep's nose, suggesting the artist was seeking to outdo himself with this piece.
There is more than meets the eye in both Michael Lucero and Steven Montgomery's work, who share a great deal in common. Both refuse to accept the limitations of their creative medium and even poke fun at it in their own work.
Lucero's "Untitled (A Living Tradition)" is a figure with a triangular shaped body composed entirely of small porcelain coin-like circles with Caesar-like heads etched on them. With a tea kettle for a head, a bow tie on its neck and a rose on its chest, its detail and the multiple uses of porcelain employed, it is a jaw-dropping sight.
Montgomery's "Octagonist" presents the audience with a thin adobe layer covering the flimsy wood and screen structure beneath. It is analogous to the human body's frail layer of skin covering the vulnerable blood and organs lurking below.
Some of the art seems dated due to color choice and style, but the exhibit is very well lit and laid out. The lighting matches the art's superb quality and makes the work shine through.
Artists Robert Brady, Jack Earl, Viola Frey, Judy Monnelis, Arthur Nelson, Ron Nagle and Richard Shaw are among the other gifted artists on display. All their work deserves to be seen.
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