Review: Art Show Explores 'identity'

“Identity” is explored in radically different ways by Catherine Adams, Ginna Dowling and Rick George in three new shows. The three contrasting exhibits are on view through July 28 at JRB Art at The Elms, 2810 N Walker. Relatively straightforward, but very evocative, are the black-and-white photos of Adams, a New York-based artist. Adams said her large chromogenic prints and smaller pictures try to convey “the acute charm of ruin and development” in old Havana, Cuba. One giant Adams photo captures the dramatic sweep of a stairway in the neoclassical national ballet building that was once a private mansion, for example. In a second very large photo by Adams, “Art” for tourists is plugged by a big crude banner hung over a street where people stroll or buy fruit from a vendor. Fascinating, too, are Adams' big pictures of a man pedaling a tourist past a guesthouse being renovated, and of a young tour guide on the roof of a “decrepit building.” Smiling, nearly dancing children fill the frame, and vintage cars are lined up on the Malecon, in two more fine large photos by Adams. Offering us very different, stark and flattened black-and-white imagery, are the vinyl serigraphs on vinyl in Norman artist Dowling's “Contemporary Hieroglyphy” show. Dowling said the series portrays people working “side by side, in interactive collaborative efforts … using the simplest of methods — tearing construction paper by hand.” Things depicted by Dowling range from cutout children and a hand holding a saw, to a range of other tools, figures and stylized, almost neo-primitive faces. Offering a nice change of pace are the bright, upbeat colors found in a number of Dowling's vinyl serigraphs on transparencies. Particularly delightful and whimsical is “Spring Fever,” a Dowling print in which a girl in a red dress and her black dog fly a yellow kite near pink flowers. Realistic, yet weirdly surrealistic and satirical are the pop star portraits of longtime graphic designer-illustrator Rick George, done with pencil and digital drawing tablet. George gives Graham Nash white hair, a little grin and a sky background, and David Crosby a guitar, a beatific look and a golden halo, to name two cases in point. Oklahoma City artist George said his portraits are “always meant to be a kindly tribute, but also a bit subversive, exaggerated and skewed.” The three shows are highly recommended. — John Brandenburg, for The Oklahoman Read more on NewsOK.com