All a board

On the cutting edge of abstraction

by Leon Nigrosh

ABSTRACT CONSTRUCTIONS BY STACY LORD

at the Gordon Library, WPI, 100 Institute Road, through November 5.

When we think of matte board, if we ever do, we think of it as that bland-toned mask that they sandwich between a picture and the glass when we get something mounted at the local frame shop. A good framer, however, can take this innocuous material and trim it just right so that it creates a nice accent for your favorite work of art.

A few years ago, Stacy Lord was one of those anonymous framers who cut mattes in the back room of Artistic Presentations, the gallery/frame shop on Cambridge Street (which, unfortunately for us all, closed this past June). As her skills improved, she began to put a little extra effort into the mattes, cutting, shaping, and using more than one color to enhance the work she was assigned to frame. It was only a short leap from using matte board for framing other people's art to using it as an artistic medium itself.

Fifteen of Lord's abstract matte-board constructions are currently on the gallery walls at WPI's Gordon Library -- and what a pleasant surprise they are to view. The first thing we marvel at is the amazing precision with which these multi-layered compositions have been cut. But it is the compositions themselves that draw, and then hold, our attention.

One of her earlier works, 1997's Behind Bars, contains a small square of red beneath a vertical grille of thin black stripes. The patch of white showing through the red has been perceived by some as a face. But even without this attempt at anthropomorphizing, the composition is rife with inner meaning and conjecture. Has the subject been trapped, or is it there for its own protection? The simple interaction of color, highlighted by the beveled white edges of the black board, enhances the illusion of physical depth.

Her 1999 composition, Web, is a more complex variation of thin lines crisscrossing every which way - some four layers deep. This all-black construction is accented by the beveled white edges that not only visually strengthen the movement of all the lines, but almost completely obscure a many-legged shape (a spider?) buried inside the complex network.

Continuing to experiment with effects, Lord has inserted bits of correspondence in her three-foot-long composition Travels. Under two levels of spaghetti-thin gridwork, Lord has torn ragged holes in black matte board through which we can make out snippets of closely handwritten notes sent from her sister while she spent a year teaching in Alaska. Another experiment revolves around dozens of two-inch-square mirrors that peek through various layers of finely cut board. The reflective quality of the mirrors combines with the reflections on the framed glass to present a playful image of the dazzled viewer.

At first glance, something seems to have gone terribly wrong with both Fallen Blocks and Framed. It appears that most, if not all, of the tiny cut shapes in each of the vertical compositions have come unstuck and slid to the bottom of the frame. Obviously, this is the exact effect that Lord was seeking, and she was so successful that more than one person has cautiously approached her with the bad news. While that effect was planned, the optical illusion in Focal Point was almost serendipitous. Working as she normally does, Lord placed a few quick pencil lines on the back of a matte board and began to cut. By the time she had finished assembling the layers of cut grillwork, the lower strata of angled lines made the top overlay of vertical bars appear to be bent. The illusion is so effective that this writer had to sneak up with a straightedge to prove conclusively that the bars were indeed not warped.

Lord continues to branch out with materials and techniques. In her most recent work in this show, Perfect Circle, she moves away from predominantly black-and-white constructions by adding yellow ochre with splashes of red. The title comes from Lord's attempt to fashion a perfect circle using her matte cutter -- which is designed to cut only straight lines. The cut-up leftovers also form part of this composition. It is left to the viewer to decide whether the circle is indeed perfect.

All of these works are so disarmingly simple in their compositional elements it might be easy to dismiss them with a quick glance. But the layers of latticework, the precision of the cuts and bevels, the subtle introduction of disparate shapes and repeated forms, and the intuitive rightness in each work requires a more substantial look to fully enjoy their serene quality.

The WPI gallery is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., and on Sunday from noon to 11 p.m. Call (508) 831-5410.