Similarly, Bridgers’ oils, “My Endless Empire” and “Princess,” and his charcoal on paper, “Harvest,” are surreal, like uneasy dreamscapes. Nails driven through skulls on a nursery room shelf are un-childish. It’s fascinating and unnerving.
In the exhibit notes, Bridgers is quoted as using “layers of paint to create an unseen narrative” and there is a satisfying richness to his oils. But if his themes of “home, the sublime, landscape, migration, love, loss and the simple beauty of goodbye” are revealed, they are very subtle. This is not accessible work — but you search to find the story.
Nguyen Ly brings masterful angst and depth to his superb drypoint prints in a technique that has challenged artists since Albrecht Durer in the 15th century. Sharp needles are used to scratch images on metallic plates in this print-making method and the detail allows for precision and nuance.
Ly’s various images — all titled “Untitled” with a number — depict man and beast in various stages of despair and degradation, imprisoned in their own shadows.
The furious strokes of Ly’s drypoint and charcoal show figures with arms raised in protection, seeming to flee from either an approaching storm or their own demons.
And his mixed media sculptures, with thin paper mounted on bent sticks, have a queasy look akin to dried skin hanging from bones. Are we humans so frail?
Alisa Gabrielle’s years as a psychotherapist could be what has defined her series shown here, known collectively as “Psychic Sketches,” and, apparently to her, the female experience is not pretty.
