New Works  2002

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WHAT: Reconfigured photographs by Rusty Scruby and polymer photogravures by Dan Mitchell Allison at Craighead- Green Gallery.

RUSTY SCRUBY: This Deep Ellum artist studied music composition in the 1980s at Texas M,rM University and the University of North Texas but turned to visual art and took drawing and anatomy courses in the early '90s. Thanks to an idea borne from
his musical training, he's finally gaining local notice for his visual creations.
"Music is abstract, but it has the ability to communicate specific ideas," he says. " Ab- straction is not something separate from.

To demonstrate the concept visually, Mr. Scruby takes several inkjet prints of a snapshot and cuts them into small squares. He then grafts tabs onto each piece and builds a new image by interlocking the squares. He offsets the photographic bits based on mathematical and musical for- mulas to create an abstracted, prismatic final picture. Works created in this fashion appear woven and often feature convex or concave humps to simulate three-dimen- sional waves.

The 12 pieces on display at Craighead- Green use only seven different photos,
all with cloudless blue skies and evident central subjects for simplicity. Many,
such as Stop andMain Street, are focused on street signs but vary in size and image complexity. Water Tower I emphasizes the latticelike support structure of a red and white water tank, while Water itself.
Three takes on an old photo of the artist's mother and sister include the experimental 1965. It's a deviation from his usual technique in that each of the squares is a small copy of the full photo. Little Lisa, however, has been digitally removed, enlarged and superimposed onto some of the tiles, then abstracted by the artist's weaving technique.

DAN MITCHELL AllSON:
Most of the 23 works displayed by this longtime Hous- ton printmaker are similar to those he exhibited early last year at William Campbell Contemporary Art in Fort
Worth. They're polymer photogravures, created by a process that invohres a
computer, black-and-white transparencIes and lithography pigments. The oddly colored film noir scenes are superimposed with text from short stories penned by the artist.

A few details are new, however. two six-panel series incorporate more recent film footage and have only one or two mysterious words centered on each panel. For instance, A Momentin Time show- cases a woman paying bills on a laptop computer; "Victor remembered. Samantha. Viva. Las. Vegas." appears, one word per frame on the work.

Eight traditional photogravure prints are also featured: a trio of uncolored orchids, a pair of arranged flowers with subtle hand tinting and text, and another threesome of film stills, also hand-colored and worded.

DETAILS:

2404 Cedar Springs Road at Maple Avenue. Thesdays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Saturdays 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free. 214-855-0779. www.craigheadgreen.com.

Mike Daniel