Chiaroscuro Contemporary Art announces two solo shows running concurrently May 9 – June 7, 2008, Seth Anderson’s, Line Paintings 2008 and Jay Tracy’s, Fugitive Form: Thermogenic Drawings & Mixed Media Paintings, with the opening reception Friday, May 9 from 5 to 7pm. Seth Anderson, Line Paintings 2008: Seth Anderson’s Line Paintings 2008 expands in new directions from his previous Line Painting series which has evolved since 2005. This new chapter continues to focus on personal identity and the abstract structures and patterns that define it, but within a new context. The lines in this series become less tangible and more ethereal. Anderson explains, “These new paintings are about the paths that are created over time by our need to reach goals and strive for things important to each of us.” The paths are rendered as lyrical painted lines that weave and wander from side to side amongst a waxy texture and collaged paper base. Each line is an individual strand that intersects other lines, building up to form the dynamic composition. Seth Anderson has shown in Santa Fe since 1995 and currently resides here as well. This is his first major exhibition at Chiaroscuro. Jay Tracy, Fugitive Form: Thermogenic Drawings & Mixed Media Paintings: Chemical reactions; heat and light on paper; the visible marks the invisible; the bound and the unbound. Jay Tracy has been exploring the physical properties of varies materials and how he can harness their chemical reactions for personal mark making on paper or canvas for decades. This new exhibition features Tracy’s long running thermogenic drawing series of ‘heat’ markings on vintage fax paper. Mysterious and intricate, these compositions explore repetition of line and process with unique results. The thermogenic investigations lead Tracy to experiment with the chemical reactions of metal salts, pigments and synthetic microbicides, which resulted in his new mixed media paintings. Tracy asks, “How might the transformed realities of specific chemical admixtures lend their (invisible) shape to the shifting (visible) paradigms of art and the subjective interest or disinterest of the observer?” Visually minimal in nature, these new paintings are the answer to his inquiries. Jay Tracy is a long-time Santa Fe resident who recently relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area. He has an extensive national exhibition record and this is his first major exhibition at Chiaroscuro.
