“I paint refuges, places to go to for solace,” writes David Kroll, and who could disagree with him? His paintings transform any blank wall into a luminescent and peaceful place for meditation—with sinuous drawing and a delicious sense of space, light, and color. “I want to add a sense of balance, order and beauty to a world that is weighted in the opposite.” And, yes, he has been quite successful. But when he also writes, “I want to reclaim the wilderness,” he’s being something of a humorist, since the “wilderness” in his painting is so obviously artificial: the flowers feel like silk, the grapes like plastic and the butterflies and birds like specimens in a display case. So the viewer may feel puzzled as well as pleased. But what’s wrong with that? Kroll’s view of nature is not that much different from Audubon’s—and it feels just as nineteenth-century old-fashioned—with a touch of melancholy for that which is dead and gone. In this exhibit, Kroll has also introduced his line of ceramics—which is not quite as magical, but even more humorous. He might be the most successful still-life painter from Chicago since Hovsep Pushman—and they both shared an interest in depicting orientalia from the later Chinese dynasties. (Chris Miller)
Opposites Attract: A Review of Nancy and David Bechtol at ARC Gallery No two artists could be farther apart in concept and style. While David’s long, long panoramic images are breathtaking in their portrayal of North American landscapes, Nancy’s wild, erratic and excitingly dynamic work is at the other end of the photographic spectrum.
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