Saturday, August 23, 2003

By Mary Thomas, Post-Gazette Art Critic

With her engaging exhibition "Matter," Brooklyn artist Jill Reynolds not only shakes up standard expectations of what glass art looks like, but also throws into question isolate readings of scientific precepts.

	This glass skeleton by Jill Reynolds, titled "Gnomon" -- the word for the column on a sundial that casts the shadow -- adds a reminder of mortality to the passing of time. In the background, "Beauty," from 2000, comprises mirrored glass letters that tempt the viewer, in vain, to look for his reflection. Click photo for larger image.

Reynolds was artist-in-residence earlier this year at the Pittsburgh Glass Center in Friendship, which has already reconfigured the face of glass for local audiences although it hasn't yet reached its second anniversary.

Intent upon putting Pittsburgh on the map as a nationally and internationally important site for studio glass education and creation, the center also has in its mission the support of glass artists and the education of the public about contemporary glass through exhibitions and talks.

The center's second resident artist, Reynolds contributes with a conceptually strong exhibition that's flavored with the medium rather than intoxicated by it. Indeed, at times it disappears altogether: Those toothpick-imbedded Styrofoam balls are just that, and not some tour de force illusion.

Reynolds -- who was an emerging-artist-in-residence at Pilchuk Glass School, Stanwood, Wash., and who's received a commission from the Corning Museum of Glass -- has exhibited at, among other venues, the MIT List Visual Art Center and the Seattle Art Museum.

The Hodge Gallery, partitioned for the exhibition, shows earlier works made as parts of larger installations in the first section, which illustrate Reynolds' humor, irreverence and palpable querying. "Are we considering all the angles?" you can almost hear the artist asking.

Sand pours through the dozen bulbous hourglass-like globes of the motor-driven "Analog," referencing the unremitting passage of months and hours. The three small, transparent glass skulls of "Ancestor, Recollection, Memorandum" contain, respectively, a smaller carbon skull, rose-colored sand that's seeping out and an alphabet-inscribed slate that calls to mind the Rosetta Stone. "Body Alphabet," represented in 26 backlit slides, inspires new ways of looking at both the body and letters.

Most exciting, because it is of one cloth, is the work made at the center shown in the second gallery.

The centerpiece is "Table of Elements," a take-off on chemistry's periodic table, with numbers of mixed-media objects arranged on a light table, some of them modified lab vessels like flasks or test tubes. Elsewhere, cute-as-buttons twins connected with a rubber hose umbilicus, "Replicate," raises questions about cloning, near a fabulous configuration of "Molecula" that glows eerily green. "Kekule's Dream" was inspired by the discoveries of a German chemist of that name, while the "molecular" chain of "Family Line" carries references to Reynolds' own. "Gravity" sounds scientific but has a beauty that's as arresting as innocence.

	"Replicate," one of the works created by Brooklyn artist Jill Reynolds while she was in residence at the Pittsburgh Glass Center this year, is a humorous appearing commentary on a topical subject, cloning. Click photo for larger image.

All specifics aside, what becomes evident as the viewer attempts to decipher facts stylistic and technical is that he's stumbled into an undefined world that exists between them.

The overall effect is to show how cultural expectations precondition our reading of all components of our universe. That a viewer's life experience influences his or her interpretation of an artwork is a given in contemporary art dialogue. To claim that the reception -- even perhaps the structuring -- of a scientific principle may be culturally steered is a harder sell. Reynolds' presentation introduces the notion that absolute might not be as unmitigable as we think, and that categorical separations may be as arbitrary as racial classifications.

It's a good time to visit the center (see hours below) because classes have been suspended during torturously hot August and parking is readily available in its adjacent lot. Or, attend the free Hot Jam Open House from 6 to 9 p.m. Sept. 5 and see "Matter" along with glass blowing and flame-working demonstrations, snacks and entertainment.

"Matter" continues through Sept. 19 at 5472 Penn Ave. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays. Admission is free. For information: call 412-365-2145 or visit www.pittsburghglasscenter.org.

On the Wall

One of the most energized visual arts events in the region, the annual "8-Hour Drawings," will take place from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Aug. 30 at Allegheny College in Meadville, giving the curious who haven't wanted to brave the snowfalls of its usual winter term execution a chance to sit in on the action.

All works are done directly on the gallery walls within 10-by-10-foot spaces and are completed in one day. Artists participating in the sixth "Drawings" are Pittsburghers Adam Davies, Tim Kaulen, Adam Sipe and Cara Tomlinson, and out-of-staters Debra Clem, Matt Dibble, Kelly Dietrick, Debra Fisher, Brian Jones, Sharon McConnell, Susan Umbenhour, Casey Vogt and Enid Williams. The public may contribute to an undirected group mural in an adjacent gallery.

The drawings will be on view Sept. 2 (with 7:30 p.m. gallery talks by Sipe, Vogt and Williams followed by a reception) through Sept. 23 before they're painted over. The gallery, in Doane Hall, is open 12:30 to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Fridays, 1:30 to 5 p.m. Saturdays and 2 to 4 p.m. Sundays. Admission is free. Wheelchair accessible. For information, call 1-814-332-4365.

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