The Arts Center at Duck Creek in Springs has opened for the season with two shows with a more-is-more attitude, and both to their credit.
That is not to say that the Don Christensen and Brianna L. Hernandez exhibitions or styles are similar in any other way, but both score points for capturing a viewer's attention and never really letting it go, offering object upon object to gaze at in each of their discrete spaces.
Ms. Hernandez is in the Little Gallery, named after John Little (an artist who lived and worked at Duck Creek), but it is actually a jewel box of a space. Her show, part of a series titled "Aqui Descansamos," is a reflection on death and the way we mourn.
Along with being an artist, curator, and educator, Ms. Hernandez is a death doula and well acquainted with the way we die and how we grieve. Her exhibition is concerned with the ritualistic aspects of the process, the tributes and funerary artifacts, and what we hold on to of the dead.
The gallery was conceived to be reminiscent of a funeral home showroom with caskets and urns displayed like artful commodities on the floor and on the walls. Rather than hard and static wood and concrete surfaces, the artist has chosen natural materials that imply life but also impermanence. Her coffin "models," presented as truncated corner pieces, are formed from mixed materials and finished with sand, banana leaves, moss, and mushrooms. Framed images above each one show the coffins fully conceived, with titles such as "The Sand Castle," "The Toadstool," and "The Tamale."
They are placed up against a border of concrete blocks with cylindrical holes that become makeshift tributes holding candles and flowers also in a process of decay.
A wall opposite holds intricately detailed and sometimes crudely rendered urns made out of paper, corn husks, chocolate, salt, sugar, soap, and more. They are striking and sad, like caskets for memories.
A life-size moss shroud is exactly what it sounds like, a shroud in the shape of a human body, formed out of strips of moss, some green and still vibrant and others browning, and set on tree trunk plinths. It is kind of eerie, but also ingenious at the same time. It makes one pause and wonder who comes up with something like that, and -- of course -- why?
In a statement, Ms. Hernandez said she wants to honor the dead and promote a feeling of empowerment in end-of-life planning. She wants to create an atmosphere in which one can imagine one day being alongside them. What would that look like?
Up in the big barn several yards away, Mr. Christensen has hung a show called "Wood Paintings in a Wood Barn." It was inspired by the barn at Duck Creek itself and by seeing a barn crowded with objects everywhere and the feelings it evoked.
The abstract and geometric way he approaches painting is also influenced by instrumental music. "The emotionality that may come out of a piece of music may strike a lot of people the same way or in similar ways, but nobody could say exactly what it is," he has said.
Riffing off the unfinished walls of the barn and their wooden slats, his supports for the paintings are formed by strips of salvaged wood, with its origin alternately highlighted, left alone, or embellished. In his version, it seems as if the wooden boards have come to life, like the dream sequence in "The Nutcracker." It might sound like a sedate assembly. It is anything but that.
Most of the strips in each support are covered in oil and alkyd paint. The majority of compositions keep the strips individually painted to form patterns that can sometimes look like Richard Diebenkorn's paintings without the larger fields of color. A few ignore the planks and are painted over in a single color with a superimposed pattern. There are some that seem to refer in their titles to places or things that might resemble their designs.
There are no set rules. Angled and herringbone assemblages sometimes offer a complex pop of change. And then there are the small tables and stools he paints, unhindered by the patchwork assembly of the support. The surfaces at the top of each piece might be painted over entirely to form a uniform ground. In other cases, the composition is painted directly on the wood finish. Both are satisfying exercises.
Their placement over the larger plank works give the installation a salon or academy feeling. Sometimes the pieces look painted to match each other, but other instances might offer no clear color or compositional relationship. The constant motion implied by the patterns and their volume can be overwhelming at times, and a viewer might seek the solace of the view from the barn door as a break from all the visual cacophony.
But even there, Mr. Christensen is not finished. Outside on the grounds are a few of his "Sign Paintings," abstractions on broad boards that resemble signs but have no words, just more massing of rectangles. Each title does, however, provide a reference point, whether it's a warning signal color code guide, a whiteboard, or name tags. They form a bridge from one exhibition to the other.
Both shows will remain on view through Sunday. Regular exhibition hours are Thursday through Sunday from 2 to 6 p.m., and the grounds are open from dawn to dusk.
