Field guides are supposed to offer scientifically exact descriptions and illustrations of the natural world.
A new four-artist group show called “Field Guide” at Jackson Artworks in the Old Market offers a visual guide to nature, all right. But these two-dimensional works are all layered with deep meaning. They're anything but scientific.
San Francisco-based artist Nicholas Bohac creates acrylic landscape paintings that, at first blush, look like delicate Japanese prints. One especially impressive painting shows a craggy mountain range nudged against a glassy lagoon. The famed symbol of the Japanese rising sun can be seen in the background.
It all seems placid until you notice the title — “Potsdam Ultimatum.” Harry S. Truman, Winston Churchill and Chiang Kai-shek issued that declaration on July 26, 1945, warning Japan of “prompt and utter destruction” if it didn't agree to unconditional surrender. The first of two atomic bombs was dropped less than two weeks later.
Lincoln artist Sunny Gibbons' artwork is more abstract. Her titles range from ambiguous — “Course” — to abstruse — “C-1.” What's not confusing in this artwork is its beauty. Gibbons plays with color, creating prismatic, cosmic swirls that look like images from the Hubble Space Telescope.
Irish artist Caolan O'Loughlin could well become T. Boone Pickens' favorite painter. His landscapes are full of state-of-the-art wind turbines, the sort of technology billionaire oilman Pickens endorsed during the recent energy crisis.
Omaha artist Matt Carlson's landscapes are sculpted. In fact, they all feature various human-head shapes that seem to have been hewn from hedges. They look like the landscapes of Edward Scissorhands.
Contact the writer:
444-1076, john.pitcher@owh.com
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