Portal I by Nancy Frankel.
“About 40 artists contributed to Studio Gallery’s “Organic Geometry: A Tribute to Nancy Frankel,” but many of the highlights are, fittingly, by the late abstract sculptor herself. An influential and much-loved figure, Frankel worked assuredly in wood, metal, plaster, clay, plastic and cast acrylic, sometimes painted in exuberant colors.
The occasion for this show, which takes its title from the longtime local artist’s description of her style, is shocking and sad. The 92-year-old Frankel was killed in her Kensington home in July; a young housemate has been charged in the case.
Much of Studio’s front upstairs gallery is devoted to Frankel’s works. These include two constructions in translucent black plexiglass; a set of five relief wall pieces that juxtapose warm and cool colors and curved and linear forms; and the towering “Time Slot,” which suspends two different-size orbs between bowed pillars. While this sculpture’s metallic finish gives it an industrial feel, two other pieces combine silvery surfaces with fleshy contours: “Three Fates,” a trio of sinuous, fired-clay bulges, and “Undulating Column,” an elegant graphite drawing, emphasize the organic aspect of Frankel’s diverse yet cohesive art.Some of the show’s participants responded directly to Frankel and her work.
Freda Lee-McCann inserted an abstract red sculpture into one of her traditional black-and-white Chinese landscapes, and Micheline Klagsbrun inscribed text on a nautically shaped piece of found wood to launch “Night Boat for Nancy.” Gabriella Bellamy offers a portrait of Frankel, whose realistic depiction is turned fanciful by its full rainbow of colors.
Studio Gallery isn’t big enough to showcase outdoor-scaled pieces, but many notable local sculptors offer robust smaller works. Jeffrey Cooper’s “Lighthouse” is a slitheringly off-kilter structure of wooden slats, Veronica Szalus’s “Orbs” is a delicate hive of painted wire and Richard Binder’s stainless-steel “Engaged” arranges a loop and two swoops in a playful rebuke to gravity.
Among the pieces whose sensibilities seem closest to Frankel’s are Mike Shaffer’s “Cherries and Berries,” a vertical cluster of red-painted tubes; Jan Acton’s “Curled Up,” a leaflike twist rendered solidly in stone; and Chris Corson’s glazed-ceramic “Same Inside,” whose boxlike forms appear to melt at the core where they intersect. All are substantial in material and execution, yet conjure a sense of vulnerability and transience.”
-Mark Jenkins, the Washington Post, December 2021