Victoria Dalkey: Jay Jay presents back-room exhibit
By Victoria Dalkey
Bee Art Correspondent
Published: Sunday, Apr. 8, 2012
Most galleries have some sort of back room, where they keep examples of works by artists they represent. Some are as small as file drawers where works on paper can be stored. Others are warehouses where large paintings and sculptures dwell.
One of the most extensive back rooms in Sacramento belongs to Jay Jay, one of the city’s premiere galleries, on Elvas Avenue in east Sacramento. Jay Jay’s back room is actually an annex, a separate building just steps away from the main gallery. There you will find works ranging from monumental paintings by Peter Wayne Lewis to intimate figures and landscapes by S.R. Jones.
After a period of reorganization and housekeeping, Beth Jones and Lynda Jolley have presented a show drawn from their back room. It’s an amazing assortment of strong works by artists both well-known and less-familiar to this viewer. The pieces fill the gallery and the annex, and taken together the two showrooms give a full picture of the range of work offered by Jay Jay.
For some time, the gallery has been sponsoring a feature on its website called the Backroom Weekly. In it, a work from the gallery’s inventory is featured with an informative essay written by gallery assistant Diana Bowers. Building on the success of that Internet offering, the current show brings many of those featured works together in a formal display.
Among them is Ellen Van Fleet’s “Turtledove,” a dazzling work on paper that centers on a burgeoning plant form that seems to spray pollen, giving it a springlike feeling.
Nearby is a series of nearly monochromatic digital prints by David Wetzl. These subtly colored plays of wit include “The Faucet of Involution,” a giant faucet from which a big drip falls on geodesic architectural forms. It’s a wonderfully imagined piece of surrealism.
Across from the Wetzls is a series of dynamic paintings by Mark Emerson, including a colorful geometric abstraction titled “Rotten Kid,” which has the intensity and beauty of a Persian miniature in abstract form.
Around the corner is “Root Ball,” a major sculpture by Julia Couzens made of thread, wire, rope, yarn and found textiles. It’s a radically inventive piece, as is a series of small drawings by Couzens that adorn the wall across from “Root Ball.”
Next to them is Kim Squaglia’s “Anagada,” a gorgeous, biomorphic abstraction in oil and resin on wood, a medium that gives great depth and luminosity to the piece. Across the way is Stuart Allen’s magical “California Yosemite,” an abstraction in which digitalized pieces of photographic information form slender stripes that change color as the eye moves across the piece. Thus he has transformed photographic data from Yosemite Valley into a sublime landscape of pure geometry.
Other works that caught my eye were Richard Martinez’s “Flying Cloud II,” an expanse of white ground on which a dark boat sails into the unknown; Joan Moment’s monumental “Alchemical Interaction,” in which chemical processes and constellations mix; and Penny Olson’s archival pigment prints on aluminum, in which subliminal shapes emerge from gloriously luminous fields of color.
The annex is less formally installed with works by Jay Jay regulars, among them Michael Stevens and Suzanne Adan, Ken Little, Joe Mariscal, Roger Berry, Ian Harvey and Koo Kyung Sook. Many have been shown before, but they are definitely worth a second look, and it’s fun to rummage through them. Happy hunting.
THE BACK ROOM
What: Beth Jones and Lynda Jolley dived into the treasures in the extensive back room at their gallery and composed a show of works ranging from monumental paintings by Peter Wayne Lewis to intimate figures and landscapes by S.R. Jones.
When:11 a.m to 4 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, through April 21
Where:Jay Jay, 5520 Elvas Ave., Sacramento
Cost: Free
Contact: (916) 453-2999
