ART

MASSARO’S “DESTROYER” IS COMPELLING

By Arthur Whitman

Opened last year along the culturally vibrant stretch of West State Street adjacent the Commons, e Rest has emerged as Ithaca’s most exciting new gallery. e brainchild of talented photographer Ben Bookout, the modest but nicely apportioned and thoughtfully furnished space hosts classes and concerts as well as regular exhibitions. It is home to one of the liveliest “ rst Friday” Gallery Night receptions going. It’s hard not to feel the energy going around.

Of course, ambitious art still has to stand on its own. For August, e Rest is hosting one of its strongest exhibits yet. Featuring a generous selection of abstract expressionist canvases by local newcomer Geena Massaro, “Destroyer” is an uncommonly mature o ering from such a young artist. One looks forward to seeing more of her work.

Massaro’s paintings exhibit an obvious debt to the mid-century work of Cy Twombly in their use of scratched and scrawled textures, thick clots of impasto, and oral allusions. It’s a dangerous in uence but her work here mostly avoids pastiche and mannerism.

It is extraordinary how much rich color Massaro embeds in these predominantly gray toned paintings. is important to stress, as local viewers misunderstand the expressive use of color in “serious” painting. You have to spend time with these pieces as physical objects. You have to get away from your screen, visit the gallery, spend time, move around, adjust your attention, and revisit certain works a er spending time in the company of others. ese are not dull or even austere works—rather they are joyously complex, more “colorful” than any rainbow hued Ithaca crowd pleaser.

Hung to the right of the gallery’s back wall, “Destroyer” is a remarkable painting. A square-shaped canvas with a relatively subtle use of impasto, it pulls striking emotional drama out of its color-space. Dense, asphalt-like black threatens to engulf the underlying eld of white, rose, and fragments of pale blue.

“Untitled (Yellow and Blue)” does similar work, half-burying rich chroma in a seemingly neutral ground—here a thick dusting of snowy white. e dark, partially blackened clots of paint that stand out from this ground may appear, on rst glance, to evoke a dead world of winter. Closer investigation reveals, fugitive glances of color and life: pale turquoise and ochre, terracotta among them.

A triptych, “Untitled (Trespasses)” is another standout. Again, not overdoing it with the paint texture, the drama unfolds across three adjacent but subtly distinguished canvases. A fog of warm gray enclouds more assertive notes of pale mustard and deep red. e wide format and relatively large scale of the piece serve to enfold and immerse the viewer—accenting the landscape feeling at play in all of these works. ese are museum-level paintings and it is a joy to seem them here.

Massaro’s is a remarkably assured and compelling show, one that eminently rewards careful attention and repeated viewings. In a cultural community that rewards a sentimental view of the creative artist and forced conceptions of “relevance,” the work here comes through with thick but nuanced forcefulness.

Founded by Samuel Buggeln, who serves as its artistic director, e Cherry Arts has been an important local venue for ambitious theatre and performance since 2015. Since this spring, it has held art shows in the newly opened Cherry Gallery—located in the Arthaus apartment building down the street.

For their late summer show “Essence,” e Cherry has recruited two artists with Ithaca connections. Yen Ospina is a popular local illustrator and muralist, while Mike Sullivan is a theatre designer and performance artist as well as a former Ithaca College student. e combination of these two in e Cherry’s new adaptable space—recently also used for dance performances—brings something new to Ithaca’s gallery scene. e installation is distinctive. Displayed on irregularly con gured movable wooden walls, wall-mounted pieces by both artists complement an elaborate suspended installation by Sullivan—“framed,” as it were, by a stretch of large windows providing a striking view of the inlet. e work of each artist is mixed rather than kept separate.

Ospina, who describes herself in the gallery bio as “a proud Latinx queer artist“ is one Ithaca’s most compelling digital graphic artists. Combining hand drawing, scanned fabric textures, and subtle on-screen manipulations, she conjures a distinctive personal mythology.

“Untitled (Yellow and Blue)” by Geena Massaro (Photo: Provided)

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