Big, Fine Shows At All Three Lakeville Galleries

    Summer’s art season finds all three Lakeville galleries in fine shape with serious, arresting work from painters — both familiar and new — in single-artist and group shows.

   At the White Gallery, the Galluzos are presenting dramatic paintings by Sergio Gonzalez-Tornero, an octogenarian Chilean artist best known for his prints, some of which are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum.   

   The paintings in this show are responses to the culture and aboriginal art of the Haida, natives — now only about 2,000 — of Canada’s Queen Charlotte Islands. The artist obviously finds both simplicity and abstraction,  as well as a universality in Haida paintings and sculpture.  But he also reacts to the naive awe with which the Haida view nature and the cosmos.

   Thus some paintings feel Siberian (“Haida Women and Children at the Village of Yanâ€�), some Asian (“Haida Woman of Yan Weavingâ€�), some Mayan and South American (“Kwakiuti Killer Whalesâ€�).  Another, “Tsonokwa Feast Dish,â€� could be a Mayan ceramic from Guatemala.  And then there are pure abstracts in red and white — one large out-of-round red circle and many small pieces: sometimes nine little canvas boards put together into a single “nonetâ€� or often individual larger boards. The small ones look like Rorschach inkblots.

   Gonzalez-Tornero’s technique is unusual. He lays on paint thickly and often cross hatches it to deliver a great texture and a sense of weight.  He is careful in separating  color from white with distinct lines, so that the white spaces are emphasized.  Many works will remind you of woodblocks.  And the Gonzalez-Tornero red alone is worth seeing:  It is a vibrant, true red with a wonderful sheen as if it were still liquid.

   At Argazzi, Judith Singelis is showing several compelling artists.  John Maggiotto is back with his final works on marble tiles. In “Many Hands,â€� the artist uses photographs and painting with silver emulsion to render fine china, crystal and silverware in a moody, ghostly collage.  Singelis is also presenting four works from Maggiotto’s new series of mannered photographs of racing cars, new and old.  Again the pictures are moody with a feeling of motion and speed.

   There is a single, magnificent example of Eric Aho’s “Blasted Treeâ€� series (at $32,000 the most expensive picture in town).  Blacks, grays, whites are laid on the canvas in short,  rectangular gouts or swirled on with the palette knife so thickly that the canvas begins to have a third dimension. There is also a lovely example of Aho’s former style — impressionistic abstract — in the landscape “South Sunderland Weather.â€�

   Argazzi’s third artist, Sabine Friesicke, is a native of Germany and paints luminous, metallic, serene pictures which deserve separate comment.  (See next week’s newspaper, please.)

   At Morgan Lehman, a four-person group show includes some of John Funt’s newer flower paintings — emphatic and dramatic, textured like fine fabrics and rendered in confident, minimal brush strokes.

Domestic and decorative objects appear with the flowers resulting in carefully arranged interior scenes worthy of Architectural Digest.

   Bryan Nash Gill is back with his large, rustic wooden sculptures, some containing his signature spheres that remind me of unpainted croquet balls. And Robert Andrew Parker is showing a group of small portraits, some of friends and some from photographs of strangers.  The best is a quite small self portrait that captures the artist’s age, intelligence and quiet good humor.

     The White Gallery at 342 Main St. in Lakeville is open Thursday-Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.  (860) 435-1029

     Argazzi is at 22 Millerton Road and is open Saturday-Sunday, 11a.m. to 5 p.m.  (860) 435-8222

     Morgan Lehman is at 24 Sharon Road and is open Saturday-Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

     The shows at all three galleries run through June 27.

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