There’s Method In The Chaos At Kehler Liddell

Amy Browning and Robert Bienstock’s abstract exhibitions — titled, respectively, ​“Island Musings” and ​“Fun with Lines” — will be up in the Kehler Liddell Gallery on Whalley Avenue in Westville through this Sunday, July 1, when there will be a closing reception and artist talk at 2 p.m.

See it while you can.

Both artists have filled the gallery to bursting with vivid images, though the exhibition is pervaded by the sense of a book of haiku. Each piece contains a resonant quality of putting the viewer where the artists stood when they witnessed their subjects, provoking us to experience our own judgments and emotions in response.

Placing Browning’s and Bienstock’s works side by side brings together the methodical and the chaotic. Browning’s pieces are energetic, Pollock-like; Bienstock’s meticulous line work creates a sense of careful attention. With these radically different processes unmistakable in the works, viewers could find themselves approaching Browning with slow regard and Bienstock with snapshot assimilation, and vice versa — creating a dynamic trip to the gallery.

In Browning’s Spring Interrupted, I saw a bed of rust or marigolds, subsumed by the shadows and grime of an urban snowstorm and its mess. The clear implication of bicycle wheels and the dancing colors of mementos in her Ghost Rider provoked a weight in my chest, remembering the ghost bike memorials of friends who died on their bikes in road accidents; the brilliance of whites and flamboyant orange and purple, gold and teal, are a loving epitaph.

Browning’s String of Beads exemplifies the power of strong contrast, creating the impression of a painfully bright summer sun, deep noon shadows, and a friend’s wrist or neck adorned in gold. I heard the peepers and crickets of a Connecticut forest night when I examined Browning’s ​“Summer Nocturnal.” Browning exhibited a body of images that encapsulated the surreal visual loudness of poignant or exhilarating moments and the way the memories of those moments become louder.

Throughout the exhibit I was struck by the variety of objects and materials that Bienstock’s textures evoke: striations, stone, wood, textiles, waves, sand. In Cusp the forms suggest both a figure boldly advancing into the unknown and the precipice of that void on which the viewer stands. Ahead there was chaos, the trials of the sea, or the challenges of climbing down a cliff face, or the ramifications of a dread confession. The cusp is the artist’s and the viewer’s — a moment to act according to what you already grok and no more.

Bienstock’s works feature broad variation in the bulges and strokes of his patterns. The juxtaposition of densely inked elements and large voids creates massive spaces on the comfortably scaled canvases. The piece Fun with Lines prompted me to wonder whether Bienstock was making a gag at himself and this body of work.

Stars and Stripes (Flag 5) is a rich expression of the diverse colors of Turtle Island and its myriad occupants. Winter Afternoon captures the blue half-shadows and true black darkness of white winter light.

Pi — one of the most naturalistic compositions in the exhibit — bridges the round contours of a bay or broad lake, the curve of a receding line of regularly placed trees, so the viewer can see the circles in our landscape, the math in the sky. Looking at Bienstock’s Awaken the Beast, I wondered at the subject; is it the slumbering form of a human? Is it a broad mouth consuming us? A maw filled with multitudes? I saw the bright colors of street art and the facades of the city all around us.

Kehler Liddell Gallery is open to view Thursdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information visit the gallery’s website.