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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Salt of the Stars@ Creative Electric Studios
Wednesday 29 October @ 13:52:12 |
 by Valerie Valentine
In a cozy corner of Northeast Minneapolis, plants grow and paintings glow. The new work at Creative Electric Studios treats nature as a playground for ideas. Local artist Alex Ackerman’s sprightly watercolors vibrate on the walls, charging the atmosphere with warmth. Chicagoan Heather Lyon explores conceptual relationships to water and land, attempting to bridge the pieces with considerations of romance versus reality.
The artists are friends from years ago, when they met while working on a farm together. An ecological feel is apparent, especially in Ackerman’s collage and paintings. Snippets of a gardener’s passion come through in “Parachuting Seeds,” and a four part series showing formal wear sprouting shoots. The paintings are mostly literal in subject, but their graceful, free forms make them emotional and joyful. Watercolor as a medium caters to chance; by including scraps of photographs, the art is grounded.
“The Pure Light Within” by Alex Ackerman
Ackerman’s floating transparencies are also balanced by an attachment to basic life forms such as cells and human biology. With crayon and watercolor, “The Pure Light Within” is a bright enlargement of inner organs, perhaps lungs or kidneys. From these golden tissues, tiny trees germinate. The work gently suggests that all life is interconnected, happily standing for itself without appearing self-righteous.
Lyon ties the show’s title together in a conceptual work entitled “Dried Tears,” two sizable mounds of salt on the floor. As explained in her statement, the word “desire” comes from Latin, meaning “no stars.” For me, the visual flow from the salt to her string art on the wall, the huge “Schooner,” to stenciled sailor love poetry evokes longing and sentimentality for the ocean. The salt is the sea without water, a solid no longer held aloft by fluidity. I also think of ships and travelers in days of old, perusing the stars for nautical navigation. When the stars were obscured, the crews were lost; perhaps distressed enough to cry…we in the city don’t get enough stargazing; we’ve traded it in for urban luminosity…then we desire so much we do not have, and forget to esteem what we achieve…
Abstract art works on me in this way, letting the imagination twirl outward and upward. Still, I found it difficult to understand how Lyon’s work addresses romanticism versus reality without contemplation. Viewers must play the association game, and piece together artistic fragments in a subtle chain of thought.
Sometimes art is easier to understand in simplicity. Ackerman’s “Roots and Shoots” gives immediate gratification in lovely little plants, purple and green, sprouting out of quirky glass bottles atop a table lit from beneath. It’s pretty, it’s peaceful, and its enjoyment is uncomplicated.
Creative Electric boldly exhibits solid artistry and conceptual challenges. It often hosts worthy musical efforts as well. Keep an eye on this space as it takes root in the community.
Through Nov. 15. Creative Electric Studios, 2201 NE 2nd St., Mpls. 612-709-7879.
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