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The three artists currently showing at the Studio Gallery all use photography to one degree or another, but their finished works couldn’t be more different from each other. Iwan Bagus’s work is intensely personal, reflecting his experience as an immigrant from Indonesia—-self-portraits in which he dresses as figures in Indonesian proverbs; an image of him clambering ashore with luggage; and a fractured self-portrait as a Rubik’s cube. Personal in a more subtle way are the tableaux in which Bagus places ornate, archaic pieces of furniture in unlikely outdoor locations—-a mirror on the shore, an unmoored door in a field, a bench in the middle of train tracks, a clock amidst a crumbling building – that each suggest a vague unease. Unlike Bagus’ color images, Peter Karp’s photographs and constructivist-inspired assemblages revel in their shades of gray, most strikingly in a horizontally doubled image of the New York City skyline. Elizabeth Grusin-Howe, meanwhile, makes photographic images of Venice, using them to create screen prints that she slathers with multiple layers of waxes and powders to produce dreamy and sometimes glittery works in peacock green, teal and burnt orange. Granted, it’s hard to make Venice anything less than beautiful, but Grusin-Howe’s work succeeds at being easy on the eyes.
Through March 26 at Studio Gallery, 2108 R Street NW. (202) 232-8734. Wed-Thu 1-7, Fri 1-8, Sat 1-6.
