A deceptively straightforward, straight-shooting and crystal-clear color photographer of the rural Midwest, Casey Sills turns out, on a well-deserved closer look, to have a complex sensibility in which the lure of color draws the eye into elaborate compositions that verge on abstraction. If he had to be classified, Sills might best be tabbed as an architectural photographer who eschews the documentary approach for the play of line and form for its own sake. He is drawn to weathered walls, ramshackle silos, garish outbuildings, and—in his banner image—a scruffy field to be planted with hops under a canopy of wires (to align the plants when they grow) that are held up by tilted wooden “anchor” poles. It is simply possible to look at that last image for its content and come away satisfied, but break it down to its wild linear composition in your mind’s eye, and you will feel a sense of unexpected power. Then go back to the surface and you will have more than you could have bargained for. (Michael Weinstein)
At Park Schreck Gallery, 1747 West North, (773)309-1747, through September 2.
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.
