Symbols are in this season at Arlington Art Center’s “Fall Solos 2007,” a series of unrelated one-artist, one-room exhibits. In Gillian Brown’s video installations, film is projected onto small wire sculptures; Brown’s strongest offering features a film of fire shown on a suspended heart while kindling is projected onto a brain. Painting, however, takes precedence throughout the rest of the exhibition. Timothy Michael Martin’s geometric abstract paintings on wood panels depict international tensions, figuring nations either as map outlines or whole blocks of color defined by alternating rigid and squiggly lines; Overseer, a graphite drawing vaguely suggesting the shape of Afghanistan on an otherwise blank page, signals physical boundaries and political ripples. Heidi Fowler’s works recall an earlier era: Her mixed-media paintings, which incorporate block printing and junk mail, strongly resemble Jasper Johns’ encaustic collages. Laurel Lukaszewski offers her black stoneware dust bunnies as a room-sized installation, but the individual component pieces don’t flow with one another—comprehensive installation may not be the right format for her sculpture. Alessandra Torres’ work crosses the flat/installation divide, with articulated, silhouetted figures done in black, white, and blond. Some of these are interactive, though most are under glass. Overall, the solo shows aren’t cerebral, but they don’t suffer from a complete break with contemporary arguments. The exhibition is on view from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays, to Saturday, Nov. 17, at the Arlington Arts Center, 3550 Wilson Blvd., Arlington. Free. (703) 248-6800.
“Fall Solos 2007″
To Saturday, Nov. 17, at the Arlington Arts Center