Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 5, 1991 TAG: 9104050069
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ANN WEINSTEIN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Paul Frets, painter, and Anna Fariello, ceramic sculptor, are professors on the art faculty at Radford University.
Frets' all-over paintings translate energy through color and motion. Intuitive and intelligent, they are disciplined by the clean, rectangular edges of the canvas. Environmentally sized (the largest is 80 by 150 inches), they are an arena of activity, both natural and painterly.
The four paintings in the show have a seasonal flow. When close enough to comfortably view the individual areas of "Vital and Sensuous Summer," it is impossible to absorb its 12 1/2 feet of brilliant canvas in one glance. So we have to scan it slowly, which generates a sense of slow lingering time.
Bright, hot shades of reds tending toward tropical excess, are held in check by the relative coolness of warm blues and psychedelic green. Its lush, rampant surface is the most impenetrable of all.
Although the others also are painted on the surface of the picture plane, there is an implied sense of depth glimpsed through dense layers of paint applied in fluid drips and lively bursts of brush strokes.
Somber browns, almost hidden beneath the August fullness of "Prelude to Autumn," inject a hint of sadness and approaching decay. In "Rain Forest," darting, swooping strokes of yellow, pink and coral warm the green coolness with a sweet cacophony of exotic birds in brilliant plumage.
The paintings are inspired less by the literal landscape than by the landscape in Frets. He paints not individual species or landmarks of nature, but its intimate structure - the spaces, balance and movement in between. One can visualize the artist dancing, dodging, stooping and stretching before the canvas in response to some ritualistic rhythm of painting.
"Dance" by Fariello consists of a small horizontal scroll with a computerized image of gesturing hands. As small and seamless as it is, it refers to several major themes in Fariello's work: hands and the combination of different cultural periods and contexts.
Presented on a low, clean rectangular platform, "Re-visioning the Past" combines organic and architectonic segments. Walls are composed of clay casts of old cobblestones and of arches cut out in the flat plane of foam core. Hands, cast from life but veined like marble, dot the interior space like classical sculptures.
Faces appear in wall tiles. As the sun and the moon, they conduct a dialogue among stars and suggested galaxies in "Conversation." Flattened and collapsed, another succumbs to the pressures of `Night Skies." A cast of Fariello's own face lights up in a fanciful floor lamp made in collaboration with William Rogers.
Delicate and diagrammatic, but not necessarily scientifically accurate, planetary symbols adorn two small winged and domed temples. In "Temple for Art and Theatre," a crescent moon and a dove are suspended from the interior of the dome while a tiny female torso emerges from an upper window and a robed figure, seen from the back, crowds the back wall.
A self-profile, cast from life, crowds the interior of "Watching," replete with a hinged and paned transparent door. It seems a surreal and ultimate portrait of the artist - and any artist - observing the world, including herself.
The combined images, materials and techniques in Fariello's work make for a slow accumulation of meaning. She seems to view the world and even the universe as a manifestation of human creativity.
The show runs through April 28. The Fine Arts Center for the New River Valley, 2 W. Main Street, Pulaski, is open weekdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and and Saturday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Nancy Garretson's exhibition of weaving at the Alleghany Highland Arts & Crafts Center seems scattered. But as a teaching exhibition, it explores a lot of different aspects of weaving. And, as varied as it seems, it has only two basic premises.
Part of the show reflects the artist's interest in painting and part her interest in weaving as an independent medium.
Bright and colorful, "Open Window" is an homage to the French artist Henri Matisse, not only in its imagery and subject matter but in its sense of intense well-being. More limited, "Crocuses Blooming in the Snow" is an example of just how literal and exacting flat, traditional tapestry can be. A literal, even trite landscape is energized by three-dimensional weaving rising above the initial surface in several layered planes.
A series incorporating stripped and bleached twigs pushes the theme, from a rainbow forest to a winter landscape to Indian motifs. A vertical slice of sunrise scenery pushes natural color and patterns to decorative designs, while sky and earth colors and suggestive shapes open the landscape to "Legends and Dreams."
The exhibit is part of a cooperative program among the center, area school systems, the Virginia Commission for the Arts and Virginia Power. The community is fortunate to have the various sectors willing to work together to arrange art experiences normally unavailable in a semi-remote area. One can only wonder what the Roanoke Valley could accomplish if the powers that be would initiate such a program.
The shows runs through April 26. The Alleghany Highlands Arts & Crafts Center in Clifton Forge is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
by CNB