More News

The artist’s background in architecture and his interests in medicine and psychology are evident in ‘‘I Am Not My Thoughts,” the most complex of the pieces. A cast relief of a face taken from an acupuncture model, with an opening to its side, sits on a constructed metal base. Opposite this is a series of perfectly round glass discs. On each, Janis has written words in a pattern. When looked at from the front, the writing mimics the three-dimensional shape of the head. When seen through the opening, it appears to form the back of the same head. It’s more than an amazing optical illusion. Janis’ form carries the meaning he intends in that the words, or ‘‘thoughts,” are projected forward in the discs, separate from the head, or ‘‘person,” thinking them. Here form and content are perfectly fused.

Many of Janis’ pieces have a dreamy surreal quality, and the combination of parts of his own making with found objects aids this effect. I especially liked ‘‘Uncharted Territory” and ‘‘Serving as Witness,” works that include old glass lantern slides — about the size of large playing cards — that comment on the environment. The former features another cast version of the same oval face atop a glass box with open sides. On front and back, the artist has inserted lantern slides: one with rhizome plants in various stages, the other with some elaborate laboratory equipment. Between them is a group of colorful tiny globes. ‘‘Serving as Witness” features a crow’s skull combined with a biological lantern slide, perhaps alluding the recent die-off of crows from pollution as well as to other environmental issues.

Space doesn’t permit a full discussion of the range of work in the Glenview exhibit that is loosely related under the idea of female identities. The four women artists are all involved in personality and identity issues, from both personal and gender perspectives. I was surprised at the variety and interest in the ‘‘Bags of the Ages,” in particular the way in which the space containing most of them is like a roomful of women at lunch conversation. One has to get up close to see the details that make each bag unique.

Among the art quilts by Autenrieth I found the autobiographical works less interesting than the big ‘‘Red, White and Blues,” with its plethora of detailed fabrics and transfers alluding to the American Revolution. Also intriguing are the purple toned ‘‘Raisin Study,” ‘‘Study with Putto” and the series of tiny ‘‘Swatches,” each about 3- by 2-inches that clearly need close-up viewing.

Far and away, however, the gallery is dominated by the work of Carolyn Jean, which is astounding in its variety and technical interest. The content is generally concerned with women in the artist’s family, and with women’s work in an American historical context. Walking up the stairs, the viewer is confronted by three huge doilies, crocheted of rough twine and placed on wooden supports. Despite the size of the most impressive of the three, ‘‘Doily with 1872 and 2007 Newsprint” – about 5- by 6-feet — the viewer is drawn in close to read clips from the 1872 Richmond Inquirer and to examine the stitching. 1872 is the birth date of Jean’s grandmother Waltie, one of 103 known female descendants of Julia Parker Savage. For each, Jean has created a doll-sized bonnet in a hanging installation using antique fabrics. There are two other installations, one about home canning and the other about home sewing, ‘‘My Mother Made Everything We Wore,” with fancy little advertisements for sewing machines and drawers filled with thread and pincushions from an old treadle model. The harshness of tenant farmer life in Virginia, and the way that poor women worked all day and into the night to keep their families fed and clothed, are conjured in these works.

Much of Jean’s imagery hails from the Great Depression and World War II. Her series of ‘‘Little Madonna” pseudo-frescoes — made with an experimental technique using Xerox transfer into gesso — are interesting for their combination of paper doll figures from the 1930s and allusions to the war. Her ‘‘Apron” and ‘‘Canning at Home” prints emphasize these themes. Of the three Joseph Cornell-like wooden box works, ‘‘Vacation Bible School,” with its collection of themed images and objects, and working music box, is the best.