CAM Review: 'New Works' at David Shelton

Jonathan Faber, High on Fire 2, 2012, pastel on paper. Photo courtesy David Shelton Gallery.

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Shelton has a fondness for paper works, it is the favored medium of many of the artists that he represents. And though he did a similarly themed show a year ago, this edition has a completely different vibe, though some of the works continue series from last year. Kelly O'Connor becomes ever more complicated. Peoplemover, a new work by O'Connor that dominates the end of the gallery was filled with her usual appropriated images, balloons, spectral eyewear, and zany color, but is engulfed under glass and joined by an eruption (this time) of oil from a derrick. It feels a bit like a terrarium, or exhibit in a vitrine: layers of paper march from the front to the back of the shallow box, making an image that darts from graphic design to competing pieces of things. But never at the same time. Whether the schizoid effect was intentional or not, the stroboscopic effect fits her habitual over-the-top hysteria.

A work by Vincent Valdez, though representative of his fine rendering, seems a bit out of the set, which also favors Jonathan Faber's abstractions that may or may not be non-objective. They have unmistakable tension that is not brought about by comic reference (as by O'Connor) but through the play of soft and sharp forms. And pushing the case against non-objectivity are the presence of shadows, as if to say, "There are countless real worlds, and even though pretty, you probably should hesitate to become intimate with some of them."

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