Abstract Art
Among the various arts, abstraction has had a spotty track record of acceptance. In music and literature, the effects of modernism have sometimes driven a wedge between serious art and popular taste. The instinct to abstract in painting and sculpture, though, has been taken as a fact of modern artistic life.
There is certainly nothing shocking in the group show called “Sensual Abstraction,” now at the Century Gallery in Sylmar. Sculptor Russell McMillan’s works, made from steel with inlay, have a strange kinship to painting, and a tactile appeal that defies the toughness and the violence of its creation via the welding torch.
On the opposite end of the tactility spectrum, Dona Geib’s digitally generated prints exist in a kind of hermetic virtual dimension, depicting an alternate reality.
A particular delicacy is achieved in Jane Schneider’s works, in fragile Japanese materials of nihonga on washi paper.
Monika Gerber, too, finds energy in the space between contrasting elements. Her paintings find blocks of color and a semblance of rational order thrown into happy disarray.
* “Sensual Abstraction,” through Feb. 20 at Century Gallery, 13000 Sayre St., Sylmar. 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Mon.-Fri., noon-4 p.m., Sat. (818) 362-3220.
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