Vestiges of the unconscious Vestiges of the unconscious (May 18, 2001)

"Traces" explores the spare work of three Bay Area artists

by Laura Reiley

Eeach spring, for as long as most people can remember, the Palo Alto Art Center celebrates "Youth Art," an exhibition of student art from the Palo Alto Unified School District. It's a joyous cacophony of brightly colored pieces, mostly representational, in a stunning range of media.

At first glance, however, there is something perverse or contrary about curator Signe Mayfied's choice of a concurrent exhibit. "Traces," which runs through June 3, presents the work of three Bay Area artists who share a kind of restraint and Zen-like reverence for their materials. The small site-specific exhibit is a serene oasis from the students' leaping animals and exuberant, gesticulating figures.

"Although they each come from a different experience, all three of these artists' work has an affinity, a similar approach to process," Mayfield explains. "They all work intuitively -- they are interested in how the work registers in your unconscious." She goes on to cite Freud's view of the unconscious as a mystic writing pad in which traces of human experience are registered.

Christel Dillbohner, Theodora Varnay Jones and Mary Ijichi share more than a parallel attempt at excavating the unconscious -- hints and shadows of each other's work weave throughout the exhibit, unifying and deepening each artist's themes. Mayfield speaks of their common "minimal aesthetic but rich use of materials." Indeed, beeswax, teabags and swatches of translucent material through which light plays are explored again and again.

Dillbohner's installation, entitled "Excursion," takes up one whole room at the center. Called "Waxed Sedimentations," the center of the installation is a series of long sheets of perforated mulberry paper covered in beeswax evocative of honeycomb. The glow of amber-colored lamps illuminates the paper, the heat emitting a faint aroma of honey and wax. On the adjacent wall, a glossy black canvas with textured stipples provides a counterpoint to "Waxed Sedimentations."

Nearby, five weathered boxes are imperfectly stacked, evocative of apiary boxes or archeological digs. Dollbohner's name itself is incorporated into the installation, underscored on the wall by a long wooden box containing many tea parties worth of used tea bags.

In Varnay Jones' work, teabags are hijacked from the realm of the organic, forming regular geometric patterns, covered in graphite against a backdrop of aluminum and wood. As Mayfield explains, Varnay Jones's pieces, "suspend contradictory components in a context of polar relationships. Transparent/opaque, dark/light, hard/soft or lustrous/fibrous elements correspond to contesting forces in nature and humanity."

Glossy gampi paper (slick Japanese paper, used for ink drawings) is covered with meticulous regiments of graphite circles - maybe bullet holes? more honeycomb? -- softened and subverted by long, irregular burn marks imparted by lit sticks of incense. Varnay Jones, like Dillbohner, uses organic media such as beeswax and wood, but uses them to investigate the idea of duality.

Located in the same room as Varnay Jones' pieces, Ijichi's long scrolls of Mylar (a kind of thin plastic) echo Dillbohner's "Waxed Sedimentations," light shining through irregular, translucent material to create glowing, scrim-like curtains. Ijichi's aim, however, is quite different. Horizontal lines of string inset in the Mylar represent illegible script.

As Ijichi explains, "As in a page of text, the lettering is the positive space and the white background the negative."

But view the same piece from further away and the visual information is reversed -- the white bands become the positive space and the "lettering" recedes. According to curator Mayfield, Ijichi is exploring the inadequacy of written expression, the veils of words that often conceal our real thoughts. As with Dillbohner and Varnay Jones, Ijichi creates a serene world in which we can access just glimpses and gentle traces of those thoughts.

What: "Traces," an exhibition featuring the works of Christel Dillbohner, Theodora Varnay Jones and Mary Ijichi

Where: Palo Alto Art Center 1313 Newell Rd., Palo Alto

When: Through June 3

Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sat.; 7-9 p.m. Thurs.; 1-5 p.m. Sun.

Cost: Admission is free.

Call: (650) 329-2366