In the vein of American art’s narrative realism, Anthony Lazorko captures quiet, ordinary scenes of rural America. On display in the lobby of the Lincoln Center are several limited edition, hand-printed, colorful woodblock prints from his nearly decade-long series, American Grain. Gallery director Jeanne Shoaff was particularly drawn to the images she felt captured a sense of isolation, although perhaps the strongest characteristic is a sense of nostalgia that ties the series together. Many of the works, such as Al’s Garage, depict roadside service stations or restaurants. Others, such as Rest Area (2010) or Going Home (2009), are snapshots of interstate travel. The horizons and landscapes in several provide clues to Lazorko’s home in the desert of southern New Mexico, with staggering mountain ranges often looming in the distance, framed by the brilliant light of sunset.
Across the lobby, in the gallery, is a display of four artists’ works in The Nature of Things which explores the intersection of the modern world and nature through various materials and artistic techniques. Shoaff explains that her idea for the exhibition began when she saw the work of Lauren Lipinski Eisen and Charlotte Nichols in an exhibition proposal and connected their interest in nature with that of two other artists, John V. Dempsey and Margaret Smithers-Crump. Delicately arranged large-scale slumped plexiglas sculptures by Smithers-Crump counterpoint Eisen’s mysterious encaustic collaged compositions of vegetation and umbrage. Dempsey’s physically imposing paintings of spliced scenes of natural and urban environments compliment Nichols’ delicate sculptural inventions of human-plant hybridization. Such variety of interpretation blurs the notion of a distinct intersection between man and nature.
*A big welcome to reviewer Jessica Crouch! If you would like to write something about a show, performance, or Arts issue in Northern Colorado, please send it to me at elmorisette@gmail.com*
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