This thirty-year retrospective of Charles Searles’ work consists of richly colored sculpture and paintings inspired by the visual aesthetic of many cultures. The pieces convey masks, dancers, music and rhythm inherent in African, Asian, and Carribean tradition. Searles is most noted for bold painted wood sculpture, both free-standing and wall-hung. However, the paintings are what steal the show. The exhibit presents an interesting correlation between Charles Searles, the sculptor, and Charles Searles, the painter. Paintings are vibrant, energetic habitats of color and shape that breed an air of celebration; the artist goes a step further, detaching two-dimensional forms from their plane and transforming them into three dimensions. In that instance, sculpture is birthed from painting and is sent out into the world to become its own being, bearing in mind that it still resembles its parents, paint and canvas. (Karissa Lang)
Through Jan 26 at G.R. N’Namdi Gallery, 110 N. Peoria.
Lost in Translation: A Review of Crip* at Gallery 400 The strongest works in the exhibition succinctly express the ways the artist relates to their own body while calling out how the artist’s body and body of work has been perceived or coded against norms or ideals.
Repurposing AI: A Review of Stephanie Dinkins at Stamps Gallery While this show is timely for everyone, I consider its setting within a university art gallery and emerging tech hub like the city of Ann Arbor a subversive provocation which Dinkins invites the greater public—including members of the university community—to consider our own positionality to AI and technology.
