Art
The everyday and the otherworldly
DON’T STRESS THE MESS
Corners Gallery exhibits shows by local artists Rachel Dickinson and Lin Price By Ar thur W hitm an
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orners Gallery in Cayuga Heights offers numerous variations. Free explocontinues its program of ambirations of line, texture, and decorative tious, far-ranging exhibits. On motifs merge with a distinctive personal view for a little longer (through April 15) iconography: marine animals, spiders and are two one-woman shows: “Recent Paint- insects, flowers, leaves and what look like ings + Stitchery by Rachel Dickinson” and fungal or microbial forms. “From Life: Paintings by Lin Price.” Both Three larger, upright pieces on silk, artists are based near Ithaca and both are hand-dyed by a friend of the artist, are familiar faces at the gallery. Dickinson’s most engrossing pieces here, Dickinson, better known for her nongiving her space to stretch out her imaginfiction writing, is new to the visual arts. ings. “What World is This” is particularly Last year at Corners saw her debut exhibirich, with its mottled brown on white tion of paintings. Painted in oil on small backdrop and its fancifully animated topanels and hung Salon style, her “Dwellpography: part map, part aquarium. ings” explored domestic everydayness in Price, by contrast, is a painter with a time some of us have experienced as a decades of experience. She is a retired forced but perhaps not entirely unwelcome instructor — and former art student — at isolation. Inspired Ithaca College. In by the work of the her oil on canvas great American paintings she aims painter Fairfield to juxtapose a quoPorter, Dickintidian realism, ofson’s paintings are ten inspired by her endearing, albeit rural Danby home, sometimes awkwith color and ward. painterly mannerThere are a isms derived from few — too few — of abstract painting. her recent small There is an undenipaintings here. able wit and charm Most compelling to this conflais “Lightkeeper’s tion — the puns House, Monhegan” and slippages that “Cork,” by painter Lin Price. which convincingly she creates between (Photo: Provided) portrays the light these two seemand shadow on the side of a quaint seaside ingly incompatible modes. One sometimes home. wishes she’d push her talents and focus In keeping with Corners’ eclectic spirit, more in one direction or the other. the focus of “Recent” is on a very differIt’s a difficult game to play — one that ent body of work. Featuring embroidered partisans of abstraction and realism alike designs on linen mounted to small panels, may find principled reasons to distrust. Dickinson’s stitchery combines a domes- Abstract painting characteristically orients tic, twee sensibility with surreal imagery. itself towards flatness and frontality, Featuring doodly hand-stitched lines and while realism generally aims to create a appliquéd fabric scraps in subdued colors dimensional world that one could imagine against white kerchief-like rectangles, these stepping into. aim for a quiet but distinctly contemporary Typically, Price portrays human or anisubversion of traditionally feminine handi- mal figures, often adopted from her own craft. life, as unwitting explorers of this terra Echoing the presentation of her paintContin u ed on Page 19 ings last year, an irregularly hung wall
