Georgetown Gallery Wrap

January 4, 2012

Georgetown’s gallery scene is a lot like the neighborhood itself: contemporary but historic, friendly and intelligent, beautiful and resonant. And with the holidays just around the bend, no gift is more powerful or more personal than a work of art.

Paintings and sculptures carry us through time. They stay with us through the years, encouraging us to think and to feel, offering perspective and adding color to our lives. You should buy a work of art because you love it. To find a connection with a painting is a remarkable and unique experience. But art also has the potential to work as an investment; it is one of the only commodities that historically go up in value.

This season our local galleries are filled with a wide and brilliant variety of artwork to suit any palette. From new local talent, to renowned glasswork and historic maps, it’s well worth a Saturday afternoon to see what’s out there.

The Old Print Gallery

Walking into the Old Print Gallery on 31st Street feels like reaching a cross-section of history. To the right of the shop are amassed thousands of original historic prints, from early 19th century Audubon bird prints and botanical studies, to Civil War battle scenes and equestrian illustrations from bygone eras.

Their collection of historic maps is a candy shop for history buffs and enthusiasts of all things Americana. You can find Virginia’s county lines from the beginning of the 18th century, explore the Chesapeake Bay circa 1747, or try your hand deciphering nautical and celestial maps.

The left side of the gallery is devoted to showcasing contemporary printmakers, often highlighting local and regional talent. Currently on display is the work of local printmaker Jake Muirhead. A stunning draftsman, Muirhead employs his mastery of line and value in the sharp angularity of printmaking, using aquatint techniques to edit and layer his works through multiple printings upon the same image. These textured, atmospheric depictions of trees, parcels, figures and unique artifacts are captivating and elusive, like sensory memories, leaving the audience contemplating a strong and immediate intimacy with the works. 1220 31st St., N.W. For more information, visit OldPrintGallery.com.

Susan Calloway Fine Arts

Susan Calloway has a discerning eye; the work on view at her Wisconsin Avenue gallery is always rich and ethereal. The collection is always a must-see on any local gallery walk. Currently on display is the exhibition “Half Light,” the work of landscape artist Brad Aldridge. His renditions of American and European terrain rival the inquisitive wonder of early American landscape paintings, as if Aldridge is discovering the land for the first time in his paintings.

“Overgrown streams, winding roads … the hovering cloud, a solitary tree … all have double meanings for me,” says Aldridge. “I’ve used these symbols to tell the viewer how I feel about the world.” His rolling hills and forests are serene escapes, which nourish the viewer on a spiritual, as well as sensory, level. He applies this same sense of wonder to urban scenes, revealing the calming effect of a crisp sunrise in even the most frenetic environments. 1643 Wisconsin Ave., N.W. CallowayArt.com.

Heiner Contemporary

Heiner Contemporary has mounted a laudable exhibition of three young contemporary artists, “In Line / Out of Line,” all bound loosely but powerfully by a common thread: the structure of pattern against the tenuous fallibility of the human touch.

Chip Allen, a New York-based painter, has what can only be described as an effusive hand. Throughout his works, there is a back-and-forth between violence and delicacy, as if the artist lay harm to his canvas only to go back in and tend the wounds with his paintbrush. Repeated motifs come in and out, interrupted at every turn. Like setting rules only to break them, the work rebels against itself, and the effect is resplendent.

Kate Sable’s paintings resemble the structure of honeycombs, with hexagonal and pentagonal shapes fitting neatly into each other on the canvas. They speak of life and harmony, much like the ever-expanding patterns of Islamic architectural calligraphy. Yet there is an unusual sidestep in the works — a bleed of paint that breaks the shape or a color’s slight change in hue. The intimacy and warmth of the work lets you in to see its flaws, which are entirely and wonderfully human.

The work of Camilo Sanín is compulsive and calming in the same breath. Strips of color move across the canvas, sometimes broken, sometimes continuous, sometimes loose, sometimes rigid. These clean, thin plains of pastels and neon look like internal patterns or brain waves, the static of a creative mind. The graphic nature of the work brings viewers in with its aesthetic acuity, only to be mesmerized by the wavelike constancy of the compositions. 1675 Wisconsin Ave., N.W. HeinerContemporary.com.

Parish Gallery

Painter Luba Sterlikova is on view at the Parish Gallery. Russian-born Sterlikova’s works bridge influences from both Russia and America, as colors from the motherland work their way into a Western sense of structure and composition.

There is a romance and sexual charge within the work, which reference patterns found in biology and astrology, and it even hints vaguely at symbols from ancient cultures, from Egypt to Islam. Detailed brushstrokes combine with the explosive character of the images to create a resonating and deeply felt contrast and energy — such as an immigrant must feel when acclimating to a new country. 1054 31st St., N.W. ParishGallery.com

Maurine Littleton

Maurine Littleton Gallery is known throughout the country for its collection of glassworks and ceramics. Established in 1984, the gallery exhibits and represents among the world’s leading contemporary artists in glass, metal, and clay, including Dale Chihuly, Harvey K. Littleton and Albert Paley.

Now is your last chance to see the current collection as it is before the gallery changes out its works in January for the new year. And there is much worth seeing.

Michael Janis’s two-dimensional glassworks are small worlds within themselves. Like poems, you might find a bird atop a branch, or the face of a woman looking down into nothing as a red polka-dot wall climbs up behind her. Janis uses a technique of layering glass sheets on top of one another, with different images on each sheet fused together to create the composition. This lends the work a certain freshness and compositional spontaneity that must be experienced.

Therma Statom is another standout artist in the current collection, whose plate glass still lifes and miniature glass houses are odes to the quirk and fragility of our daily lives. No stranger to large-scale projects, these are Statom’s more intimate works, giving her greater range to experiment and play with her materials, to whimsical and endearing results.

Along with the gallery’s collection of other decorative and functional glass art, it’s always worth stopping into the Maurine Littleton Gallery for a look around. 1667 Wisconsin Ave., N.W. LittletonGallery.com. [gallery ids="100430,114236" nav="thumbs"]

Embassy of Turkey Hosts The Ertegun Jazz Series


The presence of so many ambassadors at the Turkish Ambassador’s residence on Dec. 6 for The Ertegun Jazz Series was assurance that jazz is an international language. The Embassy of Turkey is presenting the series in collaboration with Jazz At Lincoln Center in memory of Ahmet Ertegun, the founder and chairman of Atlantic Records and the son of the second Turkish ambassador to the United States. Ambassador Tan welcomed guests calling Mica Ertegun, who came from New York for the evening, “our princess,” along with Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and other congressmen, “great friends of Turkey.” During the racially segregated period of 1934-1944, the Turkish Embassy was considered a refuge for African Americans as it hosted racially mixed jazz performances. Gretchen Parlato, an inventive modern jazz singer whose work has been hailed as “utterly, unfailingly mesmerizing,” enchanted the audience. She was accompanied by Taylor Eigsti on piano, Justin Brown on drums and Harish Raghavan on bass. [gallery ids="100437,114378,114337,114369,114361,114354,114347" nav="thumbs"]

12 Days of Merriment Kick Off at Wisc. & M

December 31, 2011

The 12 Days of Merriment kicked off Dec. 10 at the PNC bank parking lot around the intersection of Wisconsin & M — karaoke for anybody willing to jump on stage with the HariKaraoke Band, fruitcake eating contest (Jay Gorman won), a gingerbread house making contest by The Georgetowner Newspaper and silly sweater contest. Also heard were Georgetown University’s a capella group, the Phantoms as well as dogs visiting the Lucky Dogs table. The crowd enjoyed hot cocoa and sweets, as Kelly Collis and Tommy McFly from 94.7 Fresh FM emceed. The Saturday party and the 12-day shopping promotion with parking and store discounts was organized by the Georgetown Business Improvement District; it continues through Dec. 20. [gallery ids="100438,114388,114380,114357,114372,114365" nav="thumbs"]

National Rehabilitation Hospital 25th Anniversary Victor Awards

December 20, 2011

National Rehabilitation Hospital held the 25th Anniversary Gala Victory Awards at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel on Dec. 1. It was victorious in celebrating individuals who best exemplify exceptional strength and courage in the face of physical adversity. The cocktail reception was followed by a multi-course repast and live auction presided over by Kip Toner of Seattle. The evening’s honorees were Edward A. Eckenhoff, President Emeritus of NRH; entertainer Mickey Gilley, who cautioned “stay off the bull”; Robert David Hall, aka “Dr. Albert Robbins” on CBS TV’s CSI: Crime Scene Investigation; Kevin Pearce, who suffered a traumatic brain injury while training for the Olympics, and opera diva Marquita Lister, who was treated at NRH for a critical inflammation of the lungs and muscles. One must not omit the equally stellar presenters headed by Dancing with the Stars and All My Children phenomenon J. R. Martinez and including Grammy Award winning singer Yolanda Adams and Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. All of the evening’s proceeds will support NRH’s five-year, $25-million fundraising effort to retain medical rehabilitation leadership in the next quarter century.
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An Interview with Kevin Kline

December 19, 2011

Near the end of his “Classic Conversations” visit with Shakespeare Theatre Company Artistic Director Michael Kahn, actor and sometime movie star Kevin Kline noted that he loved the big parts, the scary parts.

“Why are we here if not to do the hard parts?” he asked.

Why indeed. Kline, who is a gifted Shakespearean actor and a fair-sized movie star, has done his share of the hard parts, done them more than well and risen more often than not to the challenge of being Cyrano, Falstaff, Hamlet, Richard II and Richard III, Henry V and, in his first movie role no less, the quicksilver, charismatic and doomed Nathan opposite Meryl Streep in “Sophie’s Choice” among other roles.

His old Juilliard compatriot introduced him as the actor who has been called “the American Olivier,” high praise in indeed, once issued by New York Times Drama Critic Frank Rich.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” he said. “I mean, Olivier, good God.”

“And remember, when I was a kid, I hated Shakespeare,” he said.

But then, when he was a kid in a Catholic private school which included corporal punishment, he didn’t like a lot of the things he grew to love. “Actually, I wanted to study music. I had a rock band, if you can believe that.”

He probably didn’t imagine himself to be a movie star, either, or traveling the country with the Acting Company, the creation of John (“We make money the old fashioned way. We earn it”) Houseman, a stern original from film and theater times past. “That was the best experience you could possibly have, doing the different plays in different places, small towns one night, big city the next, a college campus, and so forth. I loved that. And you learn from that.”

Kline has always returned to the stage—it’s his main love, it’s where the biggest tasks, those Moby Dick-size challenges await him.

Kahn and Kline are obvious old friends. “Remember, next year you’re going into, I don’t know what decade in theater and acting. Maybe you could do something special. Maybe we’ll give you another Will Award.”

“It has been a long time,” Kline noted. “I like always going back to the stage. But the movie industry—I have to say I don’t understand it. I don’t understand the audience. It’s teenage boys. I mean I have a reputation as being very, very careful in the roles I choose. I have a nickname to uphold. They call me Kevin Decline. Or Doctor No. I’m known for turning down roles. I even turned down Nathan at first, not to mention Dave.”

“Dave” was one of his more popular movie roles, in which he played a man who is forced to impersonate a president. He worked with director Lawrence Kasdan on “Grand Canyon” and something he thoroughly enjoyed, the star studded improbable western “Silverado” and the iconic “The Big Chill.”

That’s when he was bonafide catnip for the ladies, a movie star as well as a grounded, gifted, talented actor. “I was scared to death on “Sophie’s Choice,” he said. “But Meryl was so generous. She said don’t be intimidated. Improve. Don’t be scared to throw me around.”

Kline got an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for the cultish “A Fish Called Wanda.”

Kline these days seems to lead the most normal of lives, married to actress Phoebe Cates for over 20 years with a grown son, Owen Joseph Kline, who had a major role in “The Squid and the Whale.” “Time Magazine called it one the best performances of the year and he was a teenager. But he said he didn’t care to become an actor. Can you believe it?”

He always comes back to Shakespeare, to the parts that are big and scary, including his embrace of Cyrano, which is French, but still big and scary.

When Kline, still boyishly and elegantly handsome, walked into the room, a woman in front of me whispered: “His hair is white.”

KALKSTEIN’S CONTEMPORARIA

December 8, 2011

Deborah Kalkstein, with her dark hair and eyes, looks just as sleek as her modern, designer furniture, architecture and home décor store, Contemporaria in Georgetown. She sat down with The Downtowner to talk about holiday shopping and to recommend some of her favorite gift-able items in her chic boutique. As the days left to finish your holiday shopping tick away, don’t forget to slow down and enjoy taking in all that the D.C. retail has to offer. At Contemporaria, Kalkstein and her staff will be holding open houses where shoppers can peruse the store’s beautiful pieces with a champagne toast. “People come to browse our new collection and enjoy a bit of the holiday cheer,” Kalkstein says, a scene which sounds even more appealing when described in her lilting Peruvian accent.

The Downtowner: What’s your favorite gift you’ve ever received?

Kalkstein: Oh my God, that’s nice and simple. I just got, from my husband, a week in a spa Sedona by myself. So, I tell you, it was the most thoughtful and amazing gift that somebody could have given me because I would have not ever bought it by myself.

DT: How about the worst gift?

K: Also from my husband. He gave me this beautiful gardening James Bond suitcase. And I hate gardening. So, I was like, after being married for 20-something years don’t you know? It’s sitting in my house unopened and unused. It was not awful, but it was really not for me. But I’ll never forget it.

DT: How about your favorite gift that you’ve ever had a chance to give to someone?

K: I’ve given some really nice gifts; I have to think about it! I think one of the best things, for me, was to give my mother the watch that she always wanted and to be able to buy it for her. It gave me a lot of satisfaction.

DT: What are your three favorite gift-able items that you have in the store right now?

K: Right now we are doing, which I love, we have these Missoni throws that are very cozy and plush. You can give it to anybody from older to younger to men or women to use on your bed or couch or anything like that. They come beautifully boxed and they’re a gorgeous gift. Then we have, since we are a design-oriented store, we have the miniatures by Vitra that are all the little miniatures of all their museum-quality pieces. They’re really beautiful to have around because they remind you of design and they remind you of a beautiful thing every day. And the third, I love this new lamp we have by Floss. It has the technology of a LED light, and it’s so cool to put on your desk or a night table or anywhere.

DT: Is there anything that you’d like to say to holiday shoppers who come to Georgetown?

K: Support Georgetown! It’s a beautiful part of town. We are here for a cause because we love it here, and we all want to be here to stay. We all need the support of Georgetowners and the support they can bring to bring people from out of town, and I mean out of town like Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Arlington, to come by Georgetown and support business here . . . There’s this misconception that coming to Georgetown there’s only expensive things, but it’s not. You can find everything from all lines of work. It’s one of the only places in town that you can walk around and feel a very European mood and enjoy it and share it.
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The Links, Incorporated Celebrates


The Links, Incorporated, an international nonprofit service organization of professional women of color, recently hosted its 65th Anniversary in Washington, D.C. Events included a rededication and ribbon cutting ceremony of Links’ newly renovated National Headquarters, a state of the art LEED certified building. At a black-tie gala at the Marriott Wardman Park, for the first time the organization’s highest honor was bestowed upon an organization. The Links Medal was presented to Johnson Publishing Company Chairman Linda Johnson Rice on behalf of Ebony magazine. The recipient must have significantly impacted the lives and culture of African-Americans and other persons of African ancestry. Links brings together more than 12,000 distinguished women who are individual achievers and have made a difference in their communities and the world.

Santa and Rudolph Arrive at the Fairmont


WTOP’s “Man About Town” Bob Madigan announced the much awaited arrival of Santa and Rudolph for the 8th Annual Tree Lighting Ceremony at the Fairmont Washington, D.C., on Nov. 30. The annual event, which benefits Toys for Tots, opened with a raffle drawing, the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves’ Color Guard and entertainment by the Georgetown Visitation Madrigals. Santa and Rudolph descended the stairs to pose for photos in front of the Grinch-themed Gingerbread Village created by the hotel’s gifted pastry team. The tree was lit and children decorated holiday cards as everyone enjoyed complimentary hot chocolate, mulled wine and cookies. [gallery ids="100420,113618,113609,113557,113600,113592,113567,113584,113576" nav="thumbs"]

The Good Dr. Hall

December 7, 2011

I got a confession to make.

I’m a huge fan of the long-running CBS crime show “CSI” (for “Crime Scene Investigation”), the pioneering (first seen in October 2000) series set in Las Vegas, which spawned “CSI: Miami” and “CSI: New York.” I’ve always watched the original, mainly because I figured anything with Bill Peterson in it couldn’t be all bad, it had a cool theme song by The Who and it was set in Las Vegas.
Turns out that Robert David Hall is a big fan, too. The actor who has played Doctor Al Robbins, the chief medical examiner and king of the morgue on the show talks a little like a fan about the show, not even close to getting tired of the part, or the show, which has undergone numerous cast changes, top to bottom, over the years.

As these things often happen, he looks just like Doc Robbins, casually dressed, in a room at the Marriott in Woodley Park. There’s the doc’s characteristic white beard, the shiny top, compelling blue eyes, making him look younger than the 65 years he carries well. There’s a walking stick lying on the floor by the table we’re sitting at, the only immediate evidence that he’s also an actor with disabilities. In 1978, Hall, at the age of 30, lost both his legs and suffered major burns when his car was struck and crushed by a tractor trailer.

The good — and gruff, dark-humor loving, eccentric and not entirely PC—Doctor Robbins is also disabled and walks with the aid of a crutch and uses prosthetics, like Hall. Sometimes, Robbins has been seen in the show using a crutch like an air guitar and even singing with Bill Peterson, the original star of the show who played Grissom.

All of this, of course, speaks to his presence in Washington, a place he’s pretty familiar with. This time, he’s here as one of the recipients of the 25th Anniversary Victory Awards, given by the National Rehabilitation Hospital to individuals “who best exemplify exceptional strength and courage in the face of physical adversity.” He was among five honorees that include country singer Mickey Gilley, U.S. snowboarding champion Kevin Pearce, opera star Marqita Lister and NRH founder Edward Eckenhoff.
Hall has been a tireless advocate for job equality and his fellow actors with disability. As he says, “If you support diversity and thinks shows should give a portrayal of what America truly looks like, then performers with disabilities must be included in the equation. People have been very good at being politically correct. But there has been an assumption that disabled actors could slow down production, can’t do this or that, or that people won’t want to see them on screen.”

Hall, of course, goes beyond that. He’s visited Walter Reed Hospital many times and talked with veterans of America’s Middle Eastern wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, who have suffered disproportionately with loss of limb wounds.

“I don’t try to preach or tell them what to do,” he said. “What you’re there for as far as I’m concerned is to listen. And I think that’s what they want more than anything. They can see I know what it’s like. They’re not moping. And all I can say is that they will get over it, working every day, if they don’t give in to despair, if they have hope.”

Honored by the award, he’s also a little uncomfortable with the nation of “being some kind of brave and courageous hero.”

“I don’t see myself that way,” he said. “It’s a process. I like to think in all that time I’ve moved on quite a bit. Not entirely. Nobody does.”

“But what I am is Irish and that makes me stubborn. So, I’d say I’m stubborn and tough — not in a tough-guy sense, but hard and persistent, yeah, that’s okay. I got from my father and his father, Naval Academy guys.

He’s not a dweller on the past. What he is — and you sense this just walking into the room — is a guy looking for the next thing, the next word, the challenge. His eyes, a hypnotic blue, are alert-looking, interested and curious. He’s a talker, a story-teller. “Do something you’re afraid to do,” he said. “Accept challenges. Do something new, risky.”

“You know, you go to certain places from where you’re at, you know going to your job or the store, that kind of thing,” he says. “It drives my wife nuts. I don’t like routines, so I go a different way every time.”

Hall wanted to be a musician—“I played in bands, rock and roll folk.” He just cut an album. He has a voice made for acting, and for radio, and certainly music. If you don’t believe it, check out the YouTube clip from a “CSI” show in which Grissom and Robbins are cutting up a body and singing, and Hall sings the cause of death. It’s funny, but the voice carries and is grand, and could maybe wake the dead.

“CSI,” you can tell, has been a gift for him. He’s worked with everyone, those who starred and left, and those who stayed. No bad words here from him, not even about the other “CSI” shows. “You can say that, I won’t stop you,” he said. “I can’t. But we’re very competitive about status.”

“I got to be a regular halfway through the first season,” Hall said. “You know you’re doing good there when your face is on the opening credits.”

His character is kind of crotchety, off the wall, authoritative and funny. “I modeled him after my dad a little and a track coach in high school,” he said. “My dad was, well, okay, tough. Sometimes, I thought he was even mean. But I always knew he loved us, all of us. He just didn’t know how to do that touchy feely stuff.”

“You know, I’ve always got sort of back story in mind for the doctor,” he says. “It doesn’t matter to anybody. But on the Dec. 14 episode, just so you know, he’s going to take center stage. You’re going to meet the wife Judy (Wendy Drewson), and there’s a body at his house and a CSI investigation.”
It’s not hard to imagine Hall at the center of one or many of “CSI” episodes; what’s hard to imagine is this CSI without Hall.

“You know I look at days in terms of percentages, starting with 100 percent,” he said. “Today, it started out 100 percent because our plane landed safely and my wife is scared of flying. I got some aches and pains during the day, so it dipped a little but that’s all right. I like talking to people. It goes up.” [gallery ids="100416,113417" nav="thumbs"]

Gallery WrapDecember 7, 2011


Needless to say, the holidays are upon us?the season of giving. And to declare that a work of art makes a nice gift is an almost banal platitude. Yes, art is pretty; it decorates our walls, enlivens our homes and adds flourish to our lives. But with a wounded economy that focuses our fiscal energies on more clearly practical priorities, art is frankly a dismissible commodity.

Art, however, has a stronger memory than almost any other possession and a presence that will outlast the times in which it was bought.

My grandmother recently passed away, and what I took to remember her by is a small painting she kept by her desk. It is not a very good painting?it?s a strange, miniature reproduction of a lesser-known Picasso from the artist?s blue period. She saw it every day and was fleetingly reminded of some small detail of her life, as I see it now and am reminded of her, typing feverishly away with a phone wedged in the crook of her neck against her ear.

Over the years, she gave me more gifts than I can recount?pencil sets and pocketknives when I was younger, clothes and books when I was older. None of those things are with me anymore, save perhaps a paperback or two. Her memory lives on through me, manifested in this silly little painting.
This is the value of a work of art. It carries with it an innate history, story and feeling that few other objects can. A work is brought into existence by the artist, but it is not brought to life until it is displayed and appreciated by its owner.

Washington has a remarkable gallery scene, many showcasing local artists, and all with quality work worthy of a city of this stature. While often dwarfed by the ostentation of the museums, they are vital to the culture and community of our neighborhoods. Even if it?s just to look and chat with the gallery directors, go enjoy them. There is much to admire. The galleries featured below represent just a fraction of what is out there.

**A Local Treasure: David Suter at Gallery A**
As an illustrator, David Suter has been on the D.C. scene for a while. A longtime op-ed illustrator for the Washington Post, among other national and regional publications, he was also a courtroom artist who sketched the Watergate trials in the 70s. His illustrations are immediately iconic, among the best examples of those lightly surreal, morally political, wonk-pop New Yorker-style ink drawings that us urbanites get such a kick out of. Suter is inherently attuned to the sentiment of his time and place, a mark of any great illustrator, from John Held?s lionized depictions of flappers and the jazz age of the 1920s, to the nostalgia of Norman Rockwell.

Suter has since moved on from his illustration work, and now works as a painter and sculptor. And while his subjects are more ambiguous and his mediums more expansive, the artist?s wit, humor, wonder and small-scale grandness remain ever present. His latest exhibition at Gallery A, ?Outside the Box,? offers a lens into what seems like the subconscious of a wholly and uniquely visual thinker.
His quirky craftsmanship and use of line carries over to sculpture remarkably, and in many cases the works look like highly technical 3D collages of driftwood and found objectry. The concision and clarity of the works again belie the outright intelligence, intellectual curiosity and effort it took to create them, like the work of architect I.M. Pei (who designed, among infinite examples, the East wing of the National Gallery), whose designs reference a larger context of its own space.

The sculptures are in an eternal relationship with its space and dimension, the visual information carefully?and in some cases sparingly?chosen for each piece. More so than many sculptures, the angle and distance from which you view them entirely alters your perception, lending the works a mathematical, MC Escher-like curiosity. ?Seated Person with Dog,? if viewed from a certain vantage point, looks like a tastefully arranged stack of carved wood and aluminum. But as you come around the sculpture, the splayed legs of the canine and erect posture of the seated owner slowly reveal themselves.

His paintings carry a hazy, nebulous quality, exploring the space of light and the repetition of shapes within scenes that are reminiscent of the dignified and near-detachment of Diego Rivera. They are paintings of glances, memories of a collective cultural subconscious that Suter forms just concretely enough to be able to make out its image. A woman sits by the bed of a small, sickly elder; a rooftop church bell; a nude woman dancing while a man plays piano, a seated skeleton watches on, and a windmill looms in the background.

This show is a tremendous gallery experience. Fun, unique, engaging and smart, Suter?s work will stick with you, follow you around. I found myself thinking about it for days afterward.
David Suter?s work will be on view at Gallery A, 2106 R Street, NW, through Dec. 31. For more information visit [AlexGalleries.com](http://alexgalleries.com).

**Welcome Back, Cross Mackenzie Gallery**
Rebecca Cross, gallery director of Cross Mackenzie, has opened the doors of her gallery?s new location in Dupont Circle. Her current offerings, featuring the work of local painter Tati Kaupp and sculptor Charles Birnbaum, bring exuberance and taste together for a vibrant but peaceful exhibition that deserves to be seen.

In her earlier work, the intense color palette of Kaupp reflected the light from her childhood years in Mexico and the southwest. And while her recent paintings are considerably darker?they look like the skies just before the storm breaks?they still look celebratory. There is a sense of lightness and air here: circles, floating shapes, dots and squiggles, which rise to the top of her canvases with weightless effervescence.

The paintings are layered with quilt-like patterns that dance across the surface of the canvas?compositions in some cases literally jump over onto adjacent canvases, creating an unusual and wonderful diptych effect. While at first they may seem almost too free, perhaps even childlike, it is soon replaced by a wonder that is likely shared by the artist. I warmed up to the paintings quickly, feeling simultaneously calmed and electrified, like watching a summer thunderstorm through the window.

The extravagant sculptures of Charles Birnbaum are made up of undulating and intertwined shapes that resemble deep sea coral and anemones, but with curiously sensual undercurrents. Patterned elements are stacked and layered, with protruding, tapered appendages and sensuous tendrils reaching dangerously away from the safety of the massed center.

Birnbaum uses paper in his clay to give the porcelain more tensile strength and flexibility to hold up to the delicate and taxing methods employed by the artist. He presses the clay into surface textures, then folds, bends, pulls and twists the elements into expressive forms that even those studied in the techniques of ceramics are unable to understand or replicate. With no reflective clear glaze, the white porcelain sculptures take on a bone-like quality, absorbing light as opposed to reflecting it. The final result is a body of work that reflects a beautiful struggle of abandon and control, the unrestrained indulgence of the undulating forms versus the technical discipline of working and taming the material.
The works of Tati Kauppi and Charles Birnbaum will be on display at Cross Mackenzie Gallery, 2026 R Street, NW, through Jan. 5, 2012. For more information visit [CrossMackenzie.com](http://www.crossmackenzie.com)