Summery/Summary Group Show

Comments (0) By Marya Summers Thursday, Jun 12 2008

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Coffeehouse galleries are nothing new, but seldom do you see exhibits in such spaces curated by a bona fide art expert. At My Coffee House Gallery, however, artist and educator Sam Perry brings an idiosyncratic curatorial eye to the shows and provides an artistic sensibility to their installation. "Summery/Summary Group Show" provides a few works by each of the artists who have shown during the 2007-2008 season. But don't think of it as a re-run of exhibits past, because some are new works. What's striking about this unpretentious and diverse exhibit is that college-educated professionals who explain their work theoretically and within the context of art history are showing alongside self-taught newbies who can't yet articulate the aesthetics of their work. Exemplifying the former, Turkish-born artist Sibel Kocabasi uses transparent and translucent materials in oil paint to create four works in which the burqa repeatedly appears, sometimes worn and sometimes cast off; the fluid and lustrous quality of her medium adds a whimsical quality to her political subjects. As an instance of the latter, Ron Gaffney, an Outsider artist who creates what Perry calls "experiences from observed life and his imaginary reconfiguration of these experiences" offers acrylic-painted, ballpoint ink drawings on coffee-soaked paper. Abstracts abound in many mediums: etchings (Isabel Gouveia), drawings (Terre Rybovich), and paintings (Derek Anstis). A few artists explore the sculptural possibilities of the media they use. The fissure in the terracotta tile that serves as a surface of Nazare Feliciano's paintings becomes a crack in the wall of Casa Rasgada; Beau Meyers layers globs of transparent acrylics and soldering scraps to create reckless psychedelic abstracts. Works also by Yasar Ketenci, Sarah Lerner, Julia Longwell, Bill Perry, Susan Van Cleve, and Joseph Zaccaria. (Through July 12, at My Coffee House Gallery, 2036 N. Dixie Hwy., West Palm Beach. Call 561-308-9394.)