Exhibition 08 in the room for painting showcases recent monochrome paintings by Alan Ebnother. Originally from the Bay Area, Ebnother now maintains studios in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Leipzig, Germany. His work has been exhibited extensively over the last 20 years in Europe. Ebnother's oils, in hand-ground dry pigment on stretched linen and wood panels, are characterized by rich impasto, dense pigmentation, and an intuitive, acrobatic marking. Ebnother was originally trained as a ballet dancer and his understanding of elevation, extension, and balance comes through in his dispersed composition and the agility of his paint handling. The high pigment-to-oil ratio and furrowed surfaces of these paintings combine to create an unusually saturated color with a grounded, concrete physicality.
With the 8th show in the room for paper, we are concluding our Big Top "diptych," presenting the recent work of Bay Area photographer Rachael Jablo, C-Prints from her ongoing series entitled Under a Circus Sky. In contrast to Susan Felter's vintage studies of the performers, shown here in exhibition 06, Jablo has chosen through her shots of arena exteriors, moonlit parking lots and empty bleachers, to concentrate on the architecture of absence. She exploits the hallowing light of after-hours to mitigate between the outer and inner life, as defined by the thin, ribbed membrane of her subject circus tents. The presence of the performers and the crowds is inferred, as Jablo manages to wrestle a strangely emotive chroma out of draped canvas, diagonal tie lines and oblique shadows.