Arts Speak

ARTS SPEAK Earth and Air

By Bryan A. Hollerbach Photos courtesy of the Duane Reed Gallery

The Duane Reed Gallery in St. Louis’ Central West End neighborhood is currently displaying works celebrating elemental balance by Ron Johnson and Kensuke Yamada, with the airiness of the former pleasantly counterbalancing the earthiness of the latter. Art devotees have slightly more than a week left to view the exhibition, which closes on July 17.

Yamada, who serves as an assistant professor of ceramics in the Department of Art + Design at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, briefly reflects on his half of the exhibition.

“This is a new body of work I’ve been working on since last year,” Yamada says. “Things are shaping up, but I’m still playing/ experimenting with how figurative form, texture and color work together.

“I admire the work of [the late American painter, printmaker and sculptor] Nathan Oliveira, [American sculptor] Manuel Neri and many other artists who play surface, form and texture [in] both 2D and 3D. With my work, I look for sculptural conversations that evoke the beauty, the subtleties, the sadness and the humor of our everyday life. I hope for my work to fill the space between two seemingly distant things, to provide a connection and, thus, to create the story of you and me.”

Ethan Meyer, the gallery’s director, relates what specifically inspired the gallery to pair these two artists’ works. Both Yamada and Johnson, Meyer says, “approach their respective practices with an expressive usage of material, focusing on color, pattern and narrative. As a musician and singer, Johnson takes inspiration from song lyrics to form the titles of his artworks, which allude to a wider narrative or emotional tone of the work. Titles like That’s the Place to Find You and Walking the Shoes of Somebody Else [sic] transform the colorful abstract painting/sculptures into a multifaceted experience for the viewer.

“Similarly, Yamada’s work finds itself somewhere between playful abstraction and narrative, but instead of using an approach of pure abstraction, he repeats characters and figures disguised with colorful glazes that evoke specific moods and emotional tones. Pieces like Diver have a more somber tone alluding to interpersonal relationships with the multifigure composition, while Bird Rider feels more playful and carefree.

“Both artists’ bold use of color and expressive approach to composition make for an impactful and complementary joint exhibition.” ln Duane Reed Gallery, 4729 McPherson Ave., St. Louis, 314-361-4100, duanereedgallery.com