Buildings, landscapes shown in JRB exhibit
January 13, 2017 - John Brandenburg
Semiabstract landscapes, and big buildings, figure in work by two Tulsa artists at JRB Art at The Elms, 2810 N Walker.
The two artists are Libby Williams and Tommy Lee Ball, part of ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival), an art collective in Tulsa.
Other members of ETA, formed in 2014, are Tahlia Ball, J. P, Morrison Lans, May Yang, Jason Lockhart and Grace Grothaus Grimm.
ETA's “Vibrant Year” exhibit runs through Jan. 29, along with the annual “Tres Blanc” show of work “engaging with the color white."
In a Williams acrylic, “About Beauty,” reddish-brown branches create a dark latticework, behind which one gets a glimpse of glowing colors.
Another partly abstract acrylic by Williams could depict a “Canopy” of leaves, perhaps reflected in water, like Monet's lily pads.
Acrylic gouaches (opaque watercolors) on paper by Williams are even more abstract, yet have a loose, subliminal, almost landscape-like feel.
One of Tommy Ball's best large watercolors depicts “Main Street and North Central Avenue” in Oklahoma City.
The deep red aura of old brick buildings and slick wet streets create a corridor, leading us to two high-rise, more sunlit buildings, in the work by Tommy Ball.
In her large black-and-white photo, “Possessing Clouds,” his wife, Tahlia Ball, captures the magic of the sky's cloud formations, floating over darkness.
Other Tahlia Ball photos portray a mighty rock formation, distant ridges and a house that was once “The Place To Be,” over what looks like a reverse reflection of it.
A woman holds her hands over her eyes as her head seems to go up in smoke in “One Pure Thought,” a graphite-gouache by Lans which is one of the show's best works.
Lockhart reminds us to “Turn Off (the) Computer,” under a line of what look like extracted teeth, in an acrylic done in a flat, Pop Art-influenced style.
Yang is more abstract, evoking a “Birch,” with arbitrary, cutoff shapes, and bands or patterns of violet, white, black, green and gray, in a mixed media work.
Grimm supplies four small, loose, nearly whimsical, graphite drawings from her “Our Collective State of Being” series and a lighted box, with a leaf pattern, called “Abeyance.”
The ETA group show and the “Tres Blanc” exhibit are recommended.
— John Brandenburg, For The Oklahoman
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