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Art in America
July 2000
Debs &Co. 525 West 26th Street, Chelsea
Carrie Yamaoka's glazed slabs of deliberately imperfect luster appeared to break free from the neutral context of gallery walls, animated by the viewer's gaze and reflected presence. Occasionally tinted, they are composed of Mylar sheets applied to wood and fixed with a relatively deep surface of poured epoxy resin. As objects they are further activated by a random agitation set just beneath the resin, an effect of air pockets caught between Mylar and wood at the time of glazing. This pleasing deformation allows them to assert individual claims to unique identity. Yamaoka's radical paintings maintain a position among those rather racy art objects that mediate between painting and sculpture. They superficially resemble John McCracken's ideal, unsullied abstractions of polished steel or polyester resin on wood, but with a reflective surface more found than sought, a consequence of their support rather than a long labor process. The sheen is not dependent on how the material is worked up or burnished, although the works do in various ways reveal the presence of the artist's hand. Yamaoka is more engaged with size and color, what the viewer imagines to be the control of the pour, and the incidental effects of their making--the controlled arbitrariness of induced defects. But the artist has other things in mind. A handsome brochure with photographs by Yamaoka produced for this exhibition seemed to indicate how she would like these objects to be viewed. Taken in a studio context, the photos contain more information than the pristine condition of a gallery permits. The photographs, not the objects or installation, are the intended achievable ideal. Beautiful in themselves, the images look like dreamy Richter paintings, or ceramic tiles, or deliberate representations composed of reflected objects, including other paintings or gilded screens. They recall the idealized image on a food package that attempts to portray a desirable--and attainable--consuming experience. In the rear gallery shuttered with white blinds, the intense violet-blue of an impossibly clear late January afternoon framed the edges of the windows, incandescent with a Chelsea slice of reflected Hudson River sky at sundown. This perfect light, equal to the challenge of Yamaoka's photographs, was reflected in the paintings nearest to hand and quietly resonated on from there, instilling the gallery with a fleeting warm blue glow in which these works seemed right at home. by Edward Leffingwell
published in Art in America. |
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