CURATOR: Follow me through the looking glass

Our revived and slightly tweeked weekly column features a selection of must-see exhibits, handpicked by our resident "curator" and art-geek extraordinaire.

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CURATOR: Follow me through the looking glass

POSTED: Friday, January 13, 2012, 2:10 PM

Filed Under: Arts The Curator

Among my favorites are Nik S. Clements’ Playground I (pictured), in which metal bars become almost flat (a la an Escher or Mondrian drawing) and Alyssha Eve Csuk’s Slate Abstract XX. Here, the texture in a splitting seam of slate is brutally beautiful and somehow very organic. Through Jan. 28, free, LGTripp Gallery, 47-49 N. Second St., 215- 923-3110, lgtrippgallery.com.

Hideaki Miyamura at Wexler Gallery For over a decade, Old City’s Wexler Gallery has been showcasing both established and emerging talents in a refined, streamlined space that brings a little touch of New York to Philadelphia (in a good way). Wexler specializes in shows that encourage the convergence of multiple genres of art. Here you will find that elements like design, craft and fine arts coalesce.

Currently, the first floor of the gallery is host to an exhibit featuring several works on paper by Picasso, complemented with furniture and decorative sculpture by designer/maker Wendell Castle. The aptness of the pairing is undeniable. Both artists’ works speak to questions of form, function and design — while Picasso’s recall an era when such questions were first being explored, Castle’s are exemplary of just how relevant they remain.

The real treat at Wexler this month, however, is in the upstairs gallery — an exhibition of recent works by renowned Japanese ceramicist Hideaki Miyamura. For years, this master of glazes developed his own formulas, using materials that have never been used. Perhaps this is why the iridescence in his work glints off the surface of his pieces, more brilliantly than most. It is this element of his art — eloquence in subtle yet brilliant sheen, combined with seductive shapes and dynamic forms — that makes his pieces so captivating. Miyamura’s works are marked by the traditional line and order that is distinctive in much of Japanese art, but the shimmering finishes bring the works alive, making them pulsate into the surrounding space. Hideaki Miyamura through Jan. 28; Picasso/Castle through Feb. 25, free, Wexler Gallery, 201 N. Third St., 215-923-7030, wexlergallery.com.

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