Last Night, an enigmatic group exhibition curated by Merrill Mahan, offered a panoply of media, enriching the narrative force behind the stinging disclosures and personal inclinations inherent in the show’s theme. Colorful paintings on linen, canvas and nylon, framed and matted black, white ink jet prints, a color c-print, pastel on paper, a text wall piece of poured mirrored glass, as well as graphite drawings on paper, all contributed to the individuality that reinforces the theme, Last Night. artes fine arts magazine

James Salter’s short stories provided the underpinnings where protagonists explore aspects of their relationships, to themselves and others. The roster of artists intent on making their statements included Yvonne Jacquette, McDermott and McGough, Will Cotton, Richard Pasquarelli, Jocelyn Hobbie, Andrew Bush, Ridley Howard, Amy Bennett, Matthew Pillsbury and Alexi Worth. There is little doubt that prime ground was being mined.

The images varied so widely in origin and execution that the display challenges viewer perceptions about the creative uses and functions of visual media. This subtle unexpected challenge within the structure of the show—paired with post-modern and art historic trends—lends individual works on view a stellar sense of power. There was a thread in each unique vision (with the exception of Matthew Pillsbury’s prints), lending an undercurrent of separation to the motifs. If there is an underlying existential angst found here, these artists experience these intrinsic feelings, fraught with hardship, inherent in relationships through time.

This show was unexpectedly cerebral; it was, in effect, a compassionate salute to mankind’s efforts to clarify feelings and desires in life. While artists’ issues vary, there were tandem concerns to be discovered, linking their feelings and visions. Alexi Worth’s (oil on nylon) piece, Formalists, and Ridley Howard’s (oil on linen) painting, Brown Leather Boots, selectively delve into visions of the female form, with a specific sense of feminine allure. Matthew Pillsbury’s evanescent archival pigment ink prints present beautifully-realized interiors, inhabited by those who delight in both privacy and the company of others. These works relate to Richard Pasquarelli’s cropped, enigmatic drawings of home exteriors, where lighted facades suggest life and warmth within.

Views of harmony at home veer sharply with the sensitively conceived Jocelyn Hobbie allegorical painting, Party, in which bright colors introduce tension to an eternal narrative of the old being replaced by young. This work makes a connection with Amy Bennett’s, Prognosis, highlighting the story of a group of relatives caught in the grip of the banal act of waiting, in anticipation of the imminent terror of a doctor’s utterances on the fate of a loved one. Her small-format picture projects a tense, universal theme: the prospect of death and its frightful impact.

Taking a turn toward less critical— but still painful—matters, the McDermott & McGough painting, Something I’ve Never Had, expresses a palpable emptiness, highlighting fashionable women, a handsome celebrity, designer clothing, jewels and fancy furniture, in a remorseful expression of regrets for objects of desire perceived as permanently beyond our reach. The work is created in a graphic, cartoon vernacular, featuring blank “word bubbles,” conveying emotional emptiness and bereftness.

This sentiment is obliquely reiterated in Will Cotton’s, Coconut Cake, a painting offering a glimpse of a luscious female, whose mind seems preoccupied by the hopes of a wedding—as signaled by the cake. Her sad expression suggests thwarted wedding plans. On first glance, Richard Pasquarelli’s work, Night Sky has ‘romantic’ underpinnings; it is, after all, a sublime vision of nocturnal majesty. But the spidery dark, web-like leaves hover over and mingle with the moonlit night sky, obliterating its unblemished purity. Moving closer to the work reveals subtle tonal shifts in sky and leaf fringes, imbuing it with painterly variations in richness and sophistication. The drawings, which at first appear to be non-descript views of the doors and windows of suburban dwellings, exude an aura of mystery. One wonders what goes on inside these closed doors and shuttered windows.

On another note, Andrew Bush’s digital c-print displays a lone itinerant driver in an isolated car, with no visible landmarks to indicate its location. The title speaks to the aimlessness bred by the American car culture. Its title is an essay in itself: Man Drifting Northwest at Approximately 68 M.P.H. on U.S. Route 101 Somewhere near Camarillo, California, One Evening in 1989. The ironic wall piece, Chemistry, by Rob Wynne, conveys the vagaries of that human phenomenon with its irregular fonts, explaining so much without saying a word!

There are more poetic subtle interpretations and variations of individuals, their lives, their fantasies, their families, our earth and its promises than one notices on a first view. Yvonne Jacquette’s pastel, Maine Night Lights, displays a dark aerial view of colored urban night-lights, forming the outline of a sky-lit bird constellation.

The show was loosely sub-divided into alternate groups; the Post-Modern group includes the Chemistry wall piece by Rob Wynne, the McDermott & McGough pop-art amalgam, and the unusual Alexis Worth figure painting. The Andrew Bush C-print and the Matthew Pillsbury ink jet prints were buffer works. The alternate sub-group had roots in an art historical context, comprising paintings and works on paper. Here could be found Richard Pasquarelli’s painting and his graphite drawings, Amy Bennett’s painting, Will Cotton’s piece, and the Yvonne Jacquette work on paper. The Will Cotton piece recalled the French painters, Boucher and Watteau. His ‘girl’ is, in effect, a lovely piece of pastry herself.

In Jacquette’s painting, the murky sky speaks of the possible presence of smog, or of a brewing storm marring the night sky. These groups created the attendant tension arising from placing oppositional works within a single show. Each work then, was a response to the open-ended thematic narrative. The Andrew Bush c-print added a touch of Americana, calling attention to the car culture where people go in search of answers to life’s problems by taking road trips.

By Mary Hrbacek, Contributing Writer

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