THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 23, 1996 TAG: 9606210081
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Art Review
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 135 lines
WHAT DOES it mean to be a woman? Arlington artist Julie Schneider looks at awakening femininity in an impressive series of drawings on view at the Peninsula Fine Arts Center.
Schneider entices her audience with a gorgeous graphite technique - meticulous, cross-hatched lines and a close tonal range, as in old master prints.
She applies her technique to human figures that are recognizably contemporary, yet also neoclassical. Rather than nude, her people are wearing their undies. The beautiful folds of her T-shirts and panties have their counterpart in lush draperies found in portrait paintings from previous eras.
Unfortunately, certain jeans advertisements have robbed Schneider of a pure response. Because she portrays handsome young people, scantily clad and in reflective or sensuous poses, Schneider's viewers have to shoo those jeans ads from their consciousness to see her work afresh.
An example is a portrait titled ``When she left he was so lonely, so Eve came,'' from her ``Lilith Series.'' A cute, shirtless teen stands, leaning against a wall; his underwear peeks out from above the belt holding up his chic, torn jeans; one of his nipples is pierced.
Given recent directions in advertising imagery, the funky heart throb looks like he's just been arranged by a New York fashion photo stylist.
That's a shame, because Schneider's drawings actually have much going for them. She grounds her images in myth, recast to suit her theatrical mood. Dramatic lighting encourages a larger-than-life atmosphere.
Her ``Lilith Series'' re-examines the Hebrew legend about Adam's first wife, who was banished from the Garden of Eden after refusing to be subservient.
Lilith has served as an icon for feminism. Other series deal with the powerful, mythic figures of Medusa and Judith.
At the gallery's rear are collaborative works by Schneider and Falls Church artist Rebecca Kamen.
The two found several ways to work together. For ``Bearer of Light: In Memory of Ilene Morris,'' Kamen crafted a sculptural arch over a drawn portrait of Morris, the deceased pastoral counselor for whom the collaborative display is dedicated. Morris, a friend of both artists, was murdered by her estranged husband.
In other pieces, the two swapped sketches and built on each other's work using a digital imaging process. In overlaying end-to-end vessels over a fetal figure, it's intriguingly unclear where one artist's work begins and ends.
In the adjacent Ranhorne Gallery, Lester Van Winkle shows whimsical painted wood sculptures and other works dating from 1994 to 1996.
Titled ``Zinnias & Heartfelt Fedoras,'' Winkle's show includes large figures, sometimes with environments, along with wall pieces that are unexpected composites of framed drawings, paintings and little, attached sculptures.
The large carved works, in particular, show off Winkle's strength as a caricaturist. He has the wood carver's equivalent of good comic timing.
Look at ``Strong Arm Man,'' with his pasted-on sculptural swatches of eyes, nose and asymmetrical pouty lips. He has prickly nails for a crewcut. Strong man is showing off his biceps, while his knock-kneed state is enhanced by tight black pants. His T-shirt brandishes a squirt gun. Paper tiger, this one. Probably a mama's boy.
Freshness and lack of pretention make the sculptures look like they were made by a folk artist. But Winkle is a cherished art professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, where he has taught sculpture since 1969.
All of the Peninsula exhibits - including shows featuring paintings by L. Tryon Jennings and Kacey Sydnor Carneal and photos of teen mothers by Taylor Dabney - are on view through July 7. Free. Hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday; 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday. 596-8175.
Rebecca Kamen also is featured at The Arts Center of the Portsmouth Museums, where dozens of her sculptures are on view, as well as results of her collaborations with Julie Schneider and with photographer Peggy Feerick.
The works recently went on display in the first-floor galleries, which afford an appropriately intimate viewing space for these contemplative works.
Kamen writes that her work has been influenced by travel experiences. In 1972, she taught art on the Navajo reservation in Arizona. And, since 1985, she has made four trips to China.
The artifacts and architecture, and the sense of space as expressed in these places, made their impact on Kamen. You can see it in the work, though it's not terribly evident.
In her sculpture - the portion of the show with the greatest appeal - Kamen has not quoted directly from these other cultures. Rather she has absorbed and digested certain principles, then mixed them with her personal issues that appear related to loss, fear and hard-won transformation.
The works point to an archetypal journey, with a tiny chair seeming to act as a stand-in (or sit-in) for a person. And that chair is forever getting sucked into spiraling vortexes that are sometimes like mazes, other times like cyclones.
A reception for Kamen's show will be held at 6 p.m. Thursday at the arts center. The event also celebrates the opening of ``Reencuentros: Latin Heritage in the Northwest of the U.S.A.,'' featuring 10 contemporary Hispanic artists. The event is free for members; non-members pay $3.
Three lectures are free and open to the public:
Norfolk painter Federico Correa will deliver a pre-opening talk, titled ``The Independent Other,'' at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at Tidewater Community College's Visual Arts Center, Room 209, 340 High St., Portsmouth.
At 10 a.m. Friday, Kamen will discuss her work at the museum, followed by Angel Morales at 11 a.m. As chair of the Multi-Cultural Committee for the Arts in Virginia Beach, Morales will talk about Hispanic awareness in America.
The Portsmouth arts center is at Court and High streets. It is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $1. Call 393-8543.
Nearby, two Portsmouth galleries have painting exhibits on view this month. Olde Towne Gallery, 341 High St., is featuring Nigerian painter Chinedu Okala (pronounced shin-ah-doo oh-caw-lah), who teaches art at Norfolk State University.
The show consists of nine large canvases displayed in an intimate niche at the rear of the gallery. The works are wildly colorful and generously expressive. No holding back here.
Some canvases suggest African fabric designs. Others look like jungle scenes gone awry, seen through a Surrealist's eyes. There are signs of his study of European modernism and of his absorption of American culture.
Once you read the title of one of his pieces - ``Movement in Joyful Moments: July 4'' - you ``get'' the image right away: It's Okala's free-wheeling interpretation of a giddy fireworks explosion.
The exhibit closes June 29. Olde Towne is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday and Saturday; until 7 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. Call 397-2787.
Potrafka Gallery, 600 Washington St., has a large show of very conservative and finely executed pastels by Raymond Bell of Dumfries, Va.
Bell is a member of the Pastel Society of America. He's showing wildlife images - a fox in the snow, swans preening themselves by a lake. And he's showing seascapes and landscapes, generally of pastoral scenes that rest the eyes and soothe harried souls.
In the ``vault'' gallery, Dan Porzio of Portsmouth is having his debut exhibit. The shipyard diver has come up with some unusual imagery that is eccentric, decorative and highly personal.
``The Pond'' is an abstract picture made up of what appears to be Pop art brush strokes, as if done by Roy Lichtenstein. His ``Indian Map'' is an unstretched canvas with hieroglyphic markings corraled into outlined regions.
The shows end June 30. Hours are noon to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday. The gallery also is offering art classes. Call 399-4774. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Rebecca Kamen's ``Dervish'' is on exhibit at the Arts Center of the
Portsmouth Museums. by CNB