It may take a second to register what you’re looking at. This is true of either Polly Ewens’ drawings or Paul Caster’s photographs, on view now at Var Gallery. While they complement each other wonderfully, they diverge into different realms of existence and invention.
Caster’s subjects have apparently been around for a long time, seeing quite a bit of wear and tear. Exactly what they are, however, is a bit ambiguous. He frames his shots close upon anonymous industrial surfaces and machines, fixating on their aesthetic qualities.
A piece simply titled No. 6 is like an abstract painting with a crimson band dominating the center, framed by shades of sienna on top and darkness beneath, layered in horizontal strips. In reality, the central register is some sort of painted wood, pierced by two heavy bolts. The red color has been jostled and scraped away at points, bringing slivers of the pale naked wood back to light. The upper band is equally worn metal, rusting away to varying degrees and ready to disintegrate in its own time.
What is it and where does it come from? It could be from a shipyard or Grandpa’s shop, maybe a basement workbench or abandoned factory. What Caster does in these images, and many others in this fashion, is draw out beauty from the small scraps of a larger, unseen industrial landscape.
His is a sort of microcosmic lens, but Ewens opens her drawings into large, disconcerting fields. Working in black, white and gray, she creates pieces that are like cubism pushed to a more abstract dimension. Titles like Yard or Trees suggest her compositions originate in a certain location—either real, remembered or imaginary.
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Burial Ground is one where we seem to stand at the base of a rising hill, covered by feathery lines of textural grasses. Vertical patterns rise like trees but slide down into crevasses of the earth. Light passages of white are like paths in moonlight. Ambiguous forms layer over one another, as though the world has shed some of its opacity during some mysterious hour. This is an unknown landscape, recognizable but intriguingly unreal.
“Polly Ewens Drawings & Paul Caster Photography” is on view through July 31 at Var Gallery, 643 S. Second St. An artists’ talk will be held during a closing reception on Friday, July 29.
