Small treasures

Three artists show us whimsy and concern for Mother Nature

by Leon Nigrosh

WORKS ON PAPER: J. ANN ELDRIDGE, DAVID CLOUTIER, ABIGAIL RORER At the University of Massachusetts Medical School Gallery, 55 Lake Avenue North, through August 31.

The gallery at the UMass Medical School has distinguished itself in recent years by displaying large-scale works; it is, after all, one of the only places in the city for huge canvases to be viewed. But three artists with more than five-dozen small drawings, prints, and watercolors have found home in the school's exhibit space/lobby in a show dedicated to Elena Colin who owned the Grove Street Gallery, where they learned to perfect their craft.

Petersham printmaker and publisher Abigail Rorer's nature images are notable for a number of reasons: their exquisite clarity being the first quality you recognize. Because her scenes are so crisp and unambiguous, we can feel the chill of her small Ponies in Winter and hear the Frog That Stopped By One Day. There is, however, a quirky side to her work, a tongue-in-cheek, "gotcha" attitude that is very refreshing. It's an approach that sneaks up, particularly in the precisely delineated, hand-colored etching The Lizard Society Takes Itself Very Seriously. Three well-dressed, bespectacled individuals sit in a richly furnished Victorian setting, each with a pet lizard. As you stare at it, you realize the rug pattern in the foreground is a large reptile in repose, and the mantel is embellished with lizards, and lizards crawl along the potted plants and the pictures on the wall, and the vases are decorated with -- you guessed it. Nature is never far in Rorer's work (whether it be her pencil renderings, her etchings or engravings, or her delicate watercolors), as in her black-on-white wood engraving The Founding Members of the Bonsai Society, which features three stern Victorian dowagers and their finest dwarf plants. Her witty etching The Milliners Step Out captures four designers in their fine hats. But Rorer wins us over with her hand-tinted etching First Prize in the "Costume with Pet" Division. Here, we see a young girl (again in vaguely Victorian garb) at a country fair. It takes a moment to realize that while other contestants have cows and dogs, this young girl competes with a gorilla.

New Hampshire artist J. Ann Eldridge also offers a selection of nature prints, but her vantage point is much closer to the ground and focused on the environment. In many cases, says Eldridge, the titles come to mind before the images. In We Don't Have Lawns/ We Have White-Throated Sparrows a small, hand-colored bird is barely discernible beneath the verdant undergrowth. Two over-under double-printed plates depict the slyly titled intaglio print I Prefer Meadows Over Lawns. The top is alive with thick undergrowth, clover, ragweed, and insects. The bottom section is a border of evenly clipped and sunburned grass. Need we say more?

These prints and others, like We Should All Be Eating Like Iguanas and My Religion Has Something To Do With Compost, are produced with printing techniques that imbue a soft, guileless quality, as if Eldridge had simply inked her subjects and laid them on paper.

Working exclusively with charcoal on paper, Natick art teacher David Cloutier offers several large-format landscape images. At first, these drawings seem muddy and disordered. Having stood so close to the wall to grasp the intimate details of Eldridge's and Rorer's prints, you may think Cloutier's work is confusing. But step back several yards, and the play of sunlight and shade through the trees or as it hits a deserted stone stairway becomes much more obvious and pleasurable.

The gallery is open daily from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Call 856-2000.