Green team

At Douglas, two men consider the ins and outs of space and form

by Leon Nigrosh

ONE MAN & HIS NEPHEW: SCULPTURE BY DAVID GREEN, DRAWINGS BY MICHAEL GREEN At the Douglas Arts Common, 274 Main Street, Douglas, through August 30.

Even Pablo Picasso, when pressed for an explanation of his Guernica, said that if he could have put it into words, he'd have written a book instead. So it is particularly intriguing to read that Connecticut sculptor David Green mentions a "concern with the dialogue between the internal and external" and Canadian artist Michael Green notes that "the interior and exterior of a shape share the same edge." Both artists are experimenting within the same general theme, one in three dimensions, the other in two.

Upon entering the Douglas Arts Common, the first thing that strikes you is the sheer number of sculptures on display. In fact, David Green himself says that this is the first time some of his 24 sculptures have ever seen each other. The next thing you realize is that almost all of these works are carved from stone. Even with modern equipment, the physical process is delicate and time-consuming. One slip or a small imperfection in the stone and the sculpture is altered or destroyed. Yet Green has managed to bring a warmth and airiness to each of his organic forms, almost as if he were led by the particular stone. His Brothers, two meandering ribbon forms carved in black steatite, appears to move like a Möbius strip across its pedestal.

All of the smoothly polished forms belie their actual weight with shapes that seem to soar rather than hug the ground.

The green-veined white marble Icarus cantilevers upward from a small base with wings outstretched. An angular Dancing Boy, carved from red-speckled alabaster, stands on one leg with its extremities splayed out in all directions. Green carved so much white marble away from his Mother and Child that aside from a few thin lines of arched stone, the composition is mostly air. Whether Green carves his sculpture tall like the gray marble Sentinel, or squat like the bubble-shaped gray marble Duet, his thoughtful curves and lines as well as the holes and cavities (the so-called negative space) all push and pull against the atmosphere, wrapping it around or coaxing it through to create a pleasant counterpoint of mass and void in each of the inviting sculptures.

While David Green's sculptures actually affect the flow of air, nephew Michael Green's drawings contrive to emulate that same effect through the juxtaposition of graphite shapes on paper or Mylar sheets. Many of his 27 drawings use the image of a chunky, mustachioed athlete (similar to 19th-century photographer Edweard Muybridge's models) featured in stretching or bending poses. In Black and Gold Interior Shapes, Green has two of these athletes bending forward right through each other so that their bodies share some of the same pencil lines. Green then highlights the new shapes created between these images by painting the large central space black and a smaller area gold. By so doing, he reverses the figure-ground field, making the newly formed negative space dominant.

Although not quiet optical illusions like the well-known goblet outline that becomes a boy and girl about to kiss, Green's pictures can take on a similar type of activity as both his positive and ethereal images vie for importance within the composition. His large Interior Blue, Exterior Gold is composed of four overlapping athletes stretching back to back, with two upright and two upside down. The resulting interior area explodes outward like a turquoise-blue Rorschach test surrounded by a field of scumbled gold.

For Floating Canoe & Interior Gold, Green has superimposed two white pencil-drawn gents doing sit-ups on a black gouache background. Green highlights with gold the new space created where the figures intersect. Barely visible above this scene is a line-drawn canoe with an upturned stem and a downturned stern -- an enigmatic reference from some obscure Native-American lore injected to further create a sense of imbalance.

Once again the Douglas Arts Common has provided an excellent opportunity to see a large selection of original artworks, this time by two artists dedicated to pursuing a similar theme through different media. Taken together or individually, both Greens present a body of work which is inspiring, engaging, and eminently enjoyable.

The gallery is open Thursday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. Call 476-7082.