Press

Distinct surfaces enliven evocative works
By Catherine Fox
cfox@ajc.com

Honnie Goode and Allison Shockley, whose work you can - and should - catch for one more week at the Lowe Gallery, achieve the distinctive surface effects of their abstract paintings in unusual ways.

As experimental as a chemist, Goode mixes water- and oil-based materials to create the rich, crusty surfaces that characterize her work. Asphaltum, the tarlike substance used in blocking acid in the etching process, bubbles into intricate patterns, while bands of beeswax add to the sensual appeal. Goode also makes delicate lines and mottled marks with, believe it or not, a blowtorch.

The crackles, fissures and veins in the puddle paint - with help from the palette, ranging from butter cream and honey to pumpkin orange - evoke a feeling of geology, of parched earth, of aging ceramics.

A private symbolism animates these paintings, which grow in power with prolonged looking. Goode sees the delicate incisions in "Cross Section 1," for example, as timelines, evidence of the experiences that mark us as she marks the surface.

Goode's lovely drawings are more delicate and subtle. Marks, stains and halting lines make for spare compositions floating on a pale ground.

Shockley "paints" with acid on metal. The resultant rust, which stains anywhere from bright orange to black, forms rivulets, dots, swirls, whole lakes of shapes. Indeed, its easy to see allusions to landscape and the cosmos in these free-flowing compositions.

In many pieces, Shockley plays the more amorphous shapes off the geometry of the metal plates. In "Some Days," a grid seems to cordon off pieces of earth and sky.

The sculptures are even better. Shockley uses wax and sausage casing to create ethereal, ribbed boat shapes, which are mounted on reed-thin poles on a metal block. The sheer quantity of connotations of the boat might sink one of these delicate constructions, but instead they float on a wave of aesthetic pleasure.