Ana Henriques’s Forest I partakes of recognizable natural shapes — spreading tree branches, a mirrored sun, the ripples of water and hills — without being beholden to them. There’s a push toward the abstract that sets the shapes and colors free from the viewer giving it the easy designation of a forest scene. She makes us see those shapes and colors again, as if we’re seeing them for the first time. Just as important in the context of “Reflections,” the new group show running now at Kehler Liddell Gallery in Westville through Feb. 6, if viewers look closely in the glass that frames the work, they can see the works of Mark St. Mary and Liz Antle O’Donnell — the other two artists in the show — reflected in the glass.
“Reflections” is a show that invites viewers to see the ways in which the artists consciously took up the theme of the show in the work they presented, not only to create echoes across their own work in the show, but to make connections to the works of the other artists. states of her multimedia artworks: “The works on paper made for the show … explore the relationship between human and nature,” Henriques writes in an accompanying statement. “Reflections are found by trees, in water, in the hard surfaces of rocks, and the soft ripples of the pond. Printed organic shapes overlap one another, creating movement at times and depth.” In her work she has pursued spiritual and sociopolitical themes regarding women as well as “destruction and regeneration.” In additional to emerging in her own work, the ideas flow nicely into St. Mary’s and O’Donnell’s pieces.
St. Mary revealed that the artists arrived at the theme of reflections for their show explictly, “so I ended up looking at the idea of how some pieces might inform other pieces.” Like Henriques, he moves his photographs toward abstraction. “I often take things out of context because the things that are around it can be distracting from what the image is,” he said. “I get a charge out of being able to get something out of what’s considered a commonplace thing — something we walk by all the time.” So he finds the strict symmetry in tire tracks, the repeating motifs in shoveled snow, the mirroring shapes in clumps of seaweed.
“Upon hearing the word reflection, people often think of an image seen in a mirror, pane of glass, or the surface of water,” St. Mary write in an accompanying statement. “Sometimes they will think back on past occurrences. In this exhibition, I am looking at how certain images play off of, or inform another image, and sometimes, how one half of an image can do the same with the other half.” The images also carry a sense of documenting impermanence, as in the wet shapes St. Mary found in the concrete at Home Depot when he happened to be visiting it. If he’d been there an hour earlier or later, it wouldn’t have been there.
The idea of reflections finds its most literal embodiment in the repeating forms of Liz Antle‑O’Donnell’s print collages, even as the shapes she employs find their analogues in the pieces from Henriques and St. Mary. “Building out from my last exhibition, I am still revolving in this idea of circular print collages,” Antle-O’Donnell writes in an accompanying statement. She also uses “reflection” in another sense of the word. “This collection features larger work … and is more personal, featuring three of the places I have lived,” she continues.
All three artists play with a similar idea. Their work isn’t only reflective in the formal sense, but in the sense of looking back into oneself and one’s past as well. The works are a journal of sorts, of the artists’ preoccupations and passions, a marking of the way they observe the world. Likewise, none of the artists are particularly interested in offering easy answers or meanings through their pieces. Instead, they’re a chance for viewers to do some reflection of their own. What do the shapes mean to us? What meaning do we create for ourselves, within ourselves? The pieces in “Reflections” give us the opportunity to take a deep breath and find out.
“Reflections” runs at Kehler Liddell Gallery, 873 Whalley Ave., through Feb. 6. Visit the gallery’s website for hours and more information.