See ya, Siano

Another Old City gallery says so long

by Robin Rice

Old City is Philly's Tribeca or Soho: homesteaded, gussied up, priced out. The closing of Gallery Siano will disappoint many in the art community, but it can't be a complete surprise. Other staples of the Old City renaissance, like Nexus, have been driven out by skyrocketing rents. "Present Tense," Siano's last picture show, offers an occasion to savor the kind of striking abstractions that look so great on its generous arched brick walls.

Using a mixture of vehicles, from oil-based paint (including shellac and enamel) to acrylic, David Foss experiments with pouring color over geometries that ground the canvas and, through contrast, suggest motion and depth. On the Horizon is almost square, a vertical rectangle slightly over 6 feet high. Vertical black and white stripes on either side of a black central bar are, oddly, the opposite of a horizon. Splashes of orange, green and coal-smoke-black boil up like flames from the dark center. I slightly preferred the contrast between rigid lines and organic stains to the more ambiguous juxtapositions in Immersion, with its stretched and tattered net of white hexagons behind a viridian central pour with blips of red, orange and yellow near the perimeter.

A conjunction of one of the newest art-making technologies with one of the oldest characterizes some of Michelle Marcuse's current work. She transfers digitized laser prints, most recording the movement of liquid, onto layers of encaustic, one of the most ancient and enduring painting mediums. Wax captures light and in Marcuse's hands preserves fortuitous texture and even low relief. Both the large Blue Moon and tiny lyrical Bay evoke landscapes and a lush range of color in simple almost monochrome compositions. Shedding the dreamy atmosphere, Marcuse builds rectilinear compositions in works like Watermark and Farsight.

Gallery Director Luella Tripp says, "It's been wonderful working with my artists and getting to know them over the past six years. I hope I'll be able to continue those relationships in the future." Trip will take "a long rest" following this show but in the spring plans to open a new gallery, perhaps under her own name, on Second Street.

(r_rice@citypaper.net)

Present Tense: David Foss and Michelle Marcuse

Aug. 23-Sept. 22 Gallery Siano309 Arch St.215-629-2940