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Briceño Brilliance at Women and Their Work

Former AMOA 22 to Watch artist Candace Briceño has a solo show up at Women and Their Work that shines. In addition to her trademark whimsical "grass islands," felt sculptures of flower pods and natural forms set on little floating cushion-like islands; viewers get a fuller picture of Briceño's talent and vision through a variety of works on paper including: perforated paper works, acrylics on paper, graphite on paper and one silkscreen print.

Briceño's felt works are vibrant and childlike in their clearly articulated aesthetic, but not in their construction, which is seamless and refined. Her "Fall," Spring" Winter" and Summer" soft sculptures are especially eye-popping - each a different deeply hued palette of felt grass mounted about waist high…they almost resemble clay in their chunky exaggerated translation. The perforated paper works are minimalist and elegant. As a whole, Briceños work transcends the "crafty" bent one might associated with her media and excites…no wonder she was labeled one of 22 to Watch.

Candace Briceño: Nevermore will be on view at Women and Their Work through Saturday, July 29. For more information, call (512) 477-1064.

See it … Over and Over and Again and Again!

Carefully and cleverly constructed creations make a big impact in one of AMOA'S current offerings, Over + Over: Passion for Process. Work by artists obsessed with repetition of form impresses audiences and shows to full advantage. Fixation on repetition of form can enliven artwork, as it provides syncopation, rhythm, enforcement, and exclamation. It also highlights process or perhaps here, it's the other way around - the artists' process reveals their obsession with repetition.

Jennifer Maestre's Dadaesque "Spine," is an incredible anthropomorphic sculpture made from stacked stubs of pencils with sharpened points oriented outwards suggesting a cautionary surface.

Another standout, Lisa Hokes' "Gravity of Color" is a large-scale installation of colorful cups arranged in swooping undulating curves and patterns akin to an Abstract Expressionist gestures. Many of the cups have swirled paint in them -combining painterly touches with found object use.

The key to this work is that the artists simply don't employ repetition of materials and/or technique. Each of them somehow pushes form and process at least one step further - and many times more - moving the end results beyond multiple random occurrences and into meaningful statements, often tinged with play.

Hung alongside Over + Over is Again + Again, a group of video artworks selected by AMOA's Chief Curator, Dana Friis-Hansen. Works like Dan Picard's "Vincent Van Gogh: 42 Self Portraits" clearly demonstrate the idea of psychological transformation through repetition, while Jennifer Steinkamp's "Paint the Lily I," a projection of moving flowers, works more subtly to address intersections between nature and technology as well as the quiet mechanizations and permutations occurring in nature and time, "again and again."

Over + Over: Passion for Process and Again + Again: Cycles in Video and Light will be on view at Austin Museum of Art through Sunday, August 6, 2006. For more information, call (512) 495-9224.

Moore and Dell Explore Under the Surface

Marjorie Moore and Jeffrey Dell team up at D. Berman this month in Below the Surface: A Different Order.

Moore's part is an installation of her paintings and drawings as well personal collections of quasi-scientific items and "curiosities." She references the wonder cabinet or Kunstkabinett meaning a cabinet of curiosities. These cabinets and their contents, date to the 17th century, emphasize the exceptional, the rare, and the marvelous, and often blur lines between fact and fiction because they included both scientific specimens and suspicious mythical creatures.

Dell's contributions to this exhibit are screen prints that focus on the fundamental processes of printmaking. Creases and furrows of ink reflect the rough beginnings of work, rather than the illusionistic results of sophisticated technical manipulation, sometimes tied to silkscreen production.

Below the Surface: A Different Order opens at D. Berman Gallery Thursday, July 13 and will be on view through Saturday, August 19, 2006. For more information call (512) 477-8877.