Reviewers are not necessarily critics anymore dissecting methodology and technical prowess. What is important to me is that a review provides lasting documentation of the work outside of the artist' own efforts. This is crucial for independent artists because it creates a starting point for discovery and research by scholars and collectors alike...
Mark Jenkins' review in the Washington Post this weekend:
Sheila Crider
Making objects to represent unmaking is also Sheila Crider’s method in “January ’15-October ’16,” a show of paper, fabric and wood pieces at the District of Columbia Arts Center. The selection includes “Water Meditation,” whose blue triangles suggest ocean waves unfouled by mankind. The centerpiece, however, is “Toxicity in the Air,” a series that depicts poisoned skies and sooty clouds.
The notes for the show were written by none other than Ellyn Weiss, who commends Crider for addressing “the most critical issue of our time.” Like “Pestilence,” Crider’s work includes many hanging objects that cast foreboding shadows as they imply the universe above our heads. “Urban Runoff” arrays more than 50 grubby samples made from painted dryer lint. This crypto-scientific display recalls local artist Julie Wolfe’s jars of water collected from urban sources. But where Wolfe adds chemicals to elicit vivid hues, Crider offers mostly industrial shades of gray. Those blue paper waves offer just about the only color in this show that a 19th-century landscape painter might appreciate.
Sheila Crider: January ’15-October ’16 On view through Feb. 12
* correction: lint is varnished with acrylic but not painted.
("Industrial Smog" & "Urban Runoff" photos by Gregory Staley)
his review of "Volume" in 2014
Sheila Crider
As she demonstrates with a series of monotypes now at Honfleur Gallery, Sheila Crider can layer complexity onto a flat image. But her show is titled “Volume” because of its other work, which comes off the wall more assertively than Jason Gubbiotti’s. The D.C. artist paints on a variety of paper, cuts the sheets into partial strips and then hangs them so that gravity chooses their contours. The artworks turn into banners, DNA-like helixes or — in the case of the brown-red “Volume 11” — sinews that suggest an anatomy textbook or a butcher shop.
Crider’s technique recalls Sam Gilliam, who began exhibiting unframed canvases in the 1960s. But most of Crider’s hanging pieces are snipped into thin segments, so they dangle rather than drape. The two artists also possess different color senses: Crider paints mostly in a single hue or a limited tonal range, relying on shape and light to vary the effect. Yet the acrylic pigment (and occasionally plasticized paper) gives the works a contemporary sheen. Where the artist’s attractively muted prints are largely in earth and rain tones, punctuated by an occasional red slash, her sculptural paintings boast a city-street vitality.
Volume: Sheila Crider On view through Dec. 19 at Honfleur Gallery, 1241 Good Hope Rd. SE. 202-365-8392. www.honfleurgallery.com.
("Volume #11 photo by Greg Staley)
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