Julie Chae Gallery, which opened on Harrison Avenue this fall, presents two promising artists who make dazzling low-relief constructions of cut paper. Bostonian Alexander DeMaria’s lacy paper filigrees are technically refined to an amazing degree, but his bad-ass skulls and peacock plumage motifs don’t hold me. Bostonian Natasha Bowdoin (who’s temporarily based in New Jersey) creates large cut-out wall pieces that often resemble fallen leaves swirling in the wind. One, I Am the Sun in the Morning; I Am a Dog at Night (2007), looks like an apparition of a Chinese dragon spinning out from the wall. The pieces are covered with words and phrases — “No one seems to know,” “girl,” “you and me in a seat,” “blue” — that read like overheard conversations or snatches of Internet chatter but don’t add up to much. Both artists have obvious talent, but they seem not to have found something substantial to yoke it to yet.
Related:
Cannibals and castaways, Painting the end of the world, Mortification of the flesh, More 
- Cannibals and castaways
Dana Schutz flirts with the ugly, considers our condition, pictures the unimaginable, and uncovers what some might prefer left under a rock.
- Painting the end of the world
Back in 2001, the artist Dana Schutz had the deliciously harebrained idea to paint “The Last Man on Earth.” She named him Frank.
- Mortification of the flesh
“Global Feminisms” at Wellesley College’s Davis Museum could be one of the most important exhibits of the year.
- Painting the end of the world - side
- Shuffle mode
The news of the Allston Skirt Gallery closing turned out to be the first sign of a major gallery shake-up involving a number of Boston’s most prestigious venues.
- Wizards and masterpieces
At “Harry Potter: The Exhibition” at the Museum of Science, when a robed attendant places the sorting hat on a visitor’s head and soon after a door whooshes open to reveal the Hogwarts Express, you find yourself filled with the kind of giddy expectation you feel when getting your hands on a Potter book the day it’s released.
- Bodies and souls
Preserved flayed corpses at the Museum of Science, Americans in Paris at the Museum of Fine Arts, underground art at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, beavers at Mass College of Art — it was that kind of year, capped off by the arrival of the new Institute of Contemporary Art.
- The devil in the details
It’s hard to imagine stopping to look at drawings that don’t coalesce till you let them pull you in and spin you around a bit.
- Flora, fauna, and the female figure
The Art Nouveau movement of the late-19th/early-20th century distanced itself from the mass production of the Industrial Revolution with elaborate, one-of-a-kind works made from unusual materials.
- Chihuly lite
The main problem with “Chihuly At RISD,” on view at the RISD Museum’s new Chace Center (through January 4), is that there’s not enough Dale Chihuly here.
- Worth another look
In 2008, real estate and jobs dominated local art news.
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Topics:
Museum And Gallery
, David Lynch, Painting, Visual Arts, More
, David Lynch, Painting, Visual Arts, Institute of Contemporary Art, Dana Schutz, Alexander Demaria, John Copeland, Claes Oldenburg, Gary Baseman, Henry Darger, Less
