Wednesday, December 1, 2021


Rhombus Space is pleased to present REFLECTION, featuring work by artists Laura Frantz, Barry Gerson, Katherine Keltner, Tom Kotik, Colin O’Con, Elisa Soliven, Albert Weaver, and Brian Wood. As the fourth and final installment of exhibitions in this series of quarterly online shows, REFLECTION is a winter show that offers us work that is contemplative, connects us to our inner worlds, and encourages a sense of thoughtful observation. 


There is a rich sense of wonder and dreaminess in the artworks presented. Reflection manifests itself through shapes and compositions with symmetrical and parallel mirroring and repeating forms; psycho-emotional painterly gestures and intuitive artistic working methods, such as “feeling a painting” come into being; and in subtle color and light play combinations. Each artist in this exhibition offers us an opportunity to transcend the moment that we're in, reflect on our past or imagine distant otherworldly places, and ponder the nature of being. There’s a freshness and clarity in this work that defies the familiar, often employing metaphor and abstraction.


Albert Weaver and Brian Wood look for their paintings to emerge from a vigorous physical working of the surface. Weaver rubs colors on and off of his paintings until he gets a surprising combination that can only be discovered through the process of making. In the same spirit, Wood seeks the image and feels pulled by the internal pre-verbal language of the composition as if carried by its own energy to bring it into being. Both artists give into trusting the process of finding the painting. 


Barry Gerson and Laura Frantz are interested in how light is split and reflected on surfaces, through various materials, creating patterns and movement. Fleeting moments are captured in Gerson’s video artworks. He records and then combines footage in parallel, symmetry, and at angles to create new and unfamiliar poetic visual moving vistas. Frantz investigates how light falls on and through objects, casting shadows and reflections. She’s interested in how vision blurs and slips; and how something new and unexpected emerges from translating a concrete reference into a painted image.


Katherine Keltner and Tom Kotik use hard-edged shapes of contrasting colors to create a push-pull effect with color that is simultaneously defined and fleeting. Keltner explores meditative drawing processes that map out forms and space, and reacts to earlier marks in her paintings with new gestures in a call-and-response way. The culmination is work with a light-touched, balanced, and cohesive visual vocabulary. Kotik is highly influenced by music and sound, and explores the notion of rhythm. He makes works that are a meditation on distinct moments and clear improvisations where colors and shapes interact through a visual vibration that happens with closely valued and distinctly hued color fields.


Elisa Soliven and Colin O’Con work with quirky forms and embrace a funky and fun aesthetic. Soliven builds up the surfaces of her ceramic sculptures with mosaic-like elements and aluminum leaf. She makes simplified human-like forms in both her sculptures and drawings as talismans to convey feelings related to loss, love, and the human experience. O’Con’s recent landscape paintings reflect a feel-good soft-psychedelia that embraces the awe-inspiring color experiences that are sometimes possible in nature. His paintings try to capture a fantastical sensation of the sublime experienced outdoors.  


With 2021 coming to an end, REFLECTION is offered as an exhibition to help center us in quiet, thoughtful moments that connect us to sumptuous materials and colors, meditative processes and compositions, and the wonders of nature and life itself. Please enjoy the experience.


REFLECTION will be featured December 1, 2021 - February 28, 2022. For more information please visit: www.rhombusspace.com and @rhombusspace For inquiries please email: rhombusspace@gmail.com Find more of the artists' work on Instagram:

@laurakfrantz @barrygerson @katherinekeltner @tomkotik 

@colin_ocon @_e_s_g_ @albertsunjoonweaver @brian_wood_at_nite