RECOMMENDED Highly influenced by the styles of Cubism, medieval painting and folk art, Anne Toebbe reconstructs a Catholic church interior from her childhood memories in acrylic gouache. Toebbe sets contrasting emotional moods within the church by using dark, depressing charcoal tones to depict the inside of the structure, with conflicting perspectives, and then applies vibrant, dramatic colors to the stain glass fixtures. The most successful piece in the exhibition is “St. Dominic,” in which the emotionally void character found in Toebbe’s figures—achieved mostly through Cubist limitations on detail—is particularly meaningful in the cycle of the passion, found on the two sides of the church again in warped perspective. This is contrasted with aesthetically pleasing, more abstract stained glass fixtures. Toebbe’s unique vision—her use of multiple, warped perspective and her ability to successfully combine influences from far ends of the artistic perspective—makes “Stained Glass” a successful move in the artist’s early career. However, compared to past exhibitions, “Stained Glass” does lose some of Toebbe’s previous quirkiness and pop sensibility because of the use of such deeply dark tones. (Julian Camillieri) Through November 24 at THREE WALLS SOLO
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