12/25/2011
Tis the season for group shows of small, affordable artworks — not stocking stuffers, exactly, but clearly designed for gifting. Target Gallery is presenting such a display, but one that's agreeably short on jolly holiday themes. One of the pieces, for example, is a blue-tinted photographic print titled “Gonorrhea.” Lindsey Beal’s cyanotype may not be festive, but it suits the exhibition, which is titled “Petri Dish” and was selected by Jesse Cohen, a local art photographer who also works in molecular biology and drug development.
All the works fit into a standard-size petri dish (about four inches in diameter), although some strain against the edges. Many riff on scientific themes, if not necessarily biological ones. (Bits of computers and cellphones abound.) Others are simply paintings, prints or photos that happen to be circular and miniature. There are two handmade artists’ books (only one of them round). The media are equally diverse, including clay, fabric, glass, porcelain, water, steel, concrete, river grass and some toy soldiers.
Tricking the eye is part of the fun. Hana Hong makes painted steel and copper pieces that seem to be commonplace natural fragments; one looks like a clump of dried bark. For “Untitled Specimens,” Jasmyne Graybill uses clay and latex to simulate something that might grow on an agar medium. Amy Gross’s pair of “Cultured Biotopes” combine fabric, paper, beads and embroidery to evoke plantlike forms, although the pieces’ roughly spherical shapes suggest they’re microcosmic planets. (James Cameron might want to explore them before making “Avatar 2.”) Daniel Miller’s LED-illuminated “Under the Ice” also toys with scale; it could be an Antarctic landscape or a clump of microscopic crystals. Tiny as they are, the “Petri Dish” experiments are detailed enough to conjure worlds — and to draw the viewer into them.