Every Other Line: Jim Zingarelli, Off-Color: Cody Mack, Ordinary/Elusive: Steve Novick
3S Artspace • Portsmouth, NH • 3sarts.org • Through April 25, 2021
3S Artspace has assembled an exhibit featuring three diverse artists who complement one another, while offering completely different perspectives on making art. The three exhibits are united by simplicity, a sense of wonder, clean lines, and strong aesthetic sensibilities.
In the first gallery space, 50 13-inch square canvases are arranged in a grid. Each acrylic on linen painting is a mathematical study in precision, line, and vibrant color. Jim Zingarelli has been painting this series for the last five years, adding thin transparent layers to produce saturated colors in a dazzling array: ochre, raspberry red, indigo blue, lemon yellow, viridian green, Indian red, black, brown, white, and more.
Each painting flows, one into the other, through the use of liquid graphite marks—curls, ellipses, and lines, almost like code, a futuristic language, or a musical score. The composition unifies all 50 paintings as they pirouette and jeté in tandem with each other. The aggregate beauty of the works is a testament to Zingarelli’s exacting discipline towards excellence. As a whole, the grid becomes one large work of art. Impressive and stirring.
Off-Color offers sculpture, paintings, and prints by Cody Mack. Inspired by the primary colors of Pennsylvania bluestone, Mack has assembled a minimalistic exhibit using different mediums: latex on canvas, woodcut, stone, and aquatint on aluminum. The muted tones of blues, lilac, gray, black, and white are delicate and subtle. Mack’s sensibility for form is consistently refined. His work shimmers with elegance.
Ordinary/Elusive in the third gallery is work by Steve Novick. Using found objects, Novick combines wood, cork, felt, ceramics, and rubber into ordinary and whimsical sculptures. A carrot and stick, a sad cartoon head, a rodent, and a snowman are colorful, offbeat, and humorous. Small in stature yet large in character, these assemblages are buoyant companions to the contemplative work of Mack and the precision of Zingarelli. All three combining to start a unique conversation in minimalistic line, form, and flow.
—Dian Parker