Boston Globe review/ Boston
Globe Arts/ Galleries, November 19, 2014
Finding common ground
By Cate McQuaid
“Narrative/Non-Narrative: Two Artistic Approaches” at
Fort Point Arts Community Gallery starts with the Modernist presumption that
there’s a gulf between art that tells a story and abstract art, and concludes
with the contemporary idea that they have more in common than we thought.
Mario Kon carves into and paints on wood. His lean and
compelling abstract designs play with space and perspective. In “After Shock,”
he paints precise lines over a black ground — a white grid, red diagonals, a
sense of infinite space and also of finite architecture — to which he adds
frothy, organic curving threads of red and white.
Beverly Sky’s series of lush, dense fabric collages,
“We Shall Not Cease From Exploration: Windows on the Universe,” follows a
sweeping narrative, from the Big Bang to Voyager I. One panel considers love and
death, in which a dense shower of gold unfurls around a dragon and a rose. She
quotes T.S. Eliot: “For history is a pattern/ Of timeless moments.”
Sky and Kon — and maybe all artists — seek to convey
that pattern in their work. In the end, Sky’s work is ornate and dreamy, and
Kon’s more mathematical. Use pattern, rhythm, and layering, both leave us with a
sense of mystery.
