Friday, August 5, 2005 - 12:00 AM
CLAUDE ZERVAS
Claude Zervas' "Forest #3," 2005, projected video loop.
CLAUDE ZERVAS
Claude Zervas' "La Bûche," 2005, fluorescent lamps, custom electronics, wood.
Exhibit Reviews
By Gayle Clemans
Special to The Seattle Times
For those of us living in the city, within, but apart from, the larger, greener wilderness of the Pacific Northwest, it is easy to feel disconnected from nature. Two artists, whose work is now on view in very different parts of Seattle, return nature to the front of our consciousness.
Claude Zervas' work is currently displayed at the James Harris Gallery in gritty, urban Pioneer Square, and Kay Miller's work can be seen at the Daybreak Star Cultural Center in beautiful Discovery Park.
Seattle-based Zervas is a former software engineer who uses technology to highlight nature's ability to soothe and transport us from everyday life. His quietly entrancing works at James Harris consist of digital prints, sculptures and a video piece.
In the free-standing sculpture "Nooksack," a large construction of thin fluorescent bulbs hovers above the floor on thin wire stands, while hundreds of feet of white wire emerge from the bulbs and spill across the floor. Technology becomes natural as the fluorescent lights and wires take on the form of branches or rivulets.
Another work, "La Bûche," is a 6-foot section of a tree attached vertically to the wall, but its raw, rough appearance is punctured by the glowing LED lights within its knotholes.
Zervas is clearly interested in how technology transforms nature and produces its own natural forms and metaphors. "Forest #3," a video projected onto a large screen, presents a focused, realistic digital image of a lush Northwest forest.
Claude Zervas' "The County": 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays, and by appointment, through Aug. 20, James Harris Gallery, 309A Third Ave. S., Seattle; free (206-903-6220 or www.jamesharrisgallery.com).
Kay Miller's "Kiss of the Wild": , 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays, noon-5 p.m. Sundays, through Aug. 20. Closing ceremony 5-8:30 p.m. Aug. 20. Daybreak Star Cultural Center, Discovery Park, Seattle; free (206-285-4425).
Zervas' computer program slowly abstracts the image so that the individual pixels seem to shift into luminous patterns of light and geometric shapes. This computerized image is no less beautiful than the initial image of the forest that eventually comes back into sharp focus.
While Zervas' work is technically sophisticated, calm and cool, Miller's is messy, bold and, at times, deliberately tacky.
Miller is a Native American artist who explores the intersection between nature and human cultures. Originally from Texas and now living in Colorado, Miller combines traditional Native American animal imagery with references to popular culture.
The works on view at Daybreak Star consist of five large paintings and a related installation. Miller covers her canvases with sequins, three-dimensional objects — often masks — and thick paint in vivid, contrasting colors.
The paintings depict spiritual journeys and connections between humans and other animals. In "Kiss of the Wild," a buffalo and a woman seem to merge into or out of one another, while a standing bear, silhouetted in red, appears to offer a blessing with a glittery spray of floral rhinestones.
In another gallery, the installation appears to be a mishmash of kitsch, discount-store consumer goods and the kind of Native American art produced strictly for the tourist trade. Miller groups the objects together on one side of the room as if they were in a kind of run-down general store or gift shop, underscoring the ideas of artificiality and consumerism.
The paintings are the more powerful half of the exhibition, but keeping in mind Miller's belief in the spiritual potential of "what lies between the cracks," the beauty and meaning in the installation emerge as well. Natural imagery abounds, albeit in artificial and mass-produced forms, from the tin birds on sticks to the many tiny landscapes, framed and displayed as if ready to be purchased.
Perhaps the artist is speaking out against how the "dominant culture" (to use her term) has removed us from the natural world, but the installation also suggests that nature can be found all around us.