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Encaustics and Depuydt Prints at McLean Project for the Arts

April 25, 2008

Gessner, Nexus 1-XX, detail

Go see this one before it travels away. Dopey title notwithstanding, (" Divas and Iron Chefs of Encaustic" yech) this show demonstrates the range of surface lusciousness and emotive meaning that is achievable with this medium. It has already been well-reviewed , e.g. Michael O'Sullivan's piece in the Weekend section of WAPO today,which also contains a full photograph of what is for my money the most entrancing work, Lorraine Gessner's "Nexus 1-XX".

Margolis, Four Months, detail

Photographs, however, particularly my primitive cell-phone efforts, do not begin to capture the sweet sheen and layered depth of the work. The eight artists are mostly college art faculty from various mid-Atlantic institutions and their interests and styles vary widely, from the slash-and-burn expressionistic daily "calendar" paintings of Deena Feigelson Margolis to the contemplative and oddly delicate light-suffused pieces of Heather Harvey.

Depuydt

Also not to be missed are the large format prints by Donald Depuydt that line the staircase up to the main galleries. Superimposing layers of dense imagery using a variety of intaglio and other processes which I could not entirely decipher however much I tried, Depuydt has achieved mysterious and sometimes frightening effects. I only wish that the MPA had managed to give him better space where the viewer could move back from the pieces to see them in better perspective. I hope that next time they do.

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