Autumn Ramsey’s paintings have simple subjects, like a pair of hands or a bird’s nest, but with extended viewing a general sense of unease builds. One of the more affecting of the small canvases is “Hoodoo,” a painting of two hands making different gestures. Though they bear the same shirtsleeves, each hand is scaled differently, one being considerably larger than the other. The palette is a dark grey blue but a hint of green circles a gap made by the thumb and forefinger. The green calls attention to the curious shape that resembles a blackened eye socket. Eyes figure prominently in Ramsey’s work, appearing in several other works like “the scream” and “untitled (television).” “The scream,” at first blush, is a wispy turquoise peacock tail-like form atop a metallic silver canvas. Again, as the strangeness builds, eyes emerge out of the design on the tail. As a metaphor, eyes are as worn out as skulls in contemporary art, but the comedic gesture of undercutting the otherwise earnest paintings lends fragility to the paintings that makes them more human. The brushwork is loose and prone to wander the gamut from dry to fluid, dollops to single lines. In this regard Ramsey owes a debt to artists such as Laura Owens or Albert Oehlen for summoning the full range of painterly options back into the service of metaphor. Ramsey’s paintings are delightfully strange to look at and deserve at least that much. (Dan Gunn)
Through October 18 at Lloyd Dobler Gallery, 1545 W. Division, floor 2, (312)961-8706
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