Rhomboid Rumba

.

Gabriele Evertz
R-Split-SCd-24, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 24 x 24 inches
.
.

It’s no secret that I’m interested in diamonds. My entire current solo show, up now through May 28 at the Marcia Wood Gallery in Atlanta, is full of them—squares turned on their axis, along with some elongated parallelograms of the shape you might describe as harlequin. But this post is not about my work. It’s about what other artists are doing with these shapes. As often happens, one’s personal interest becomes larger than oneself.

Gilbert Hsiao

Untitled, 2007, acrylic sprayed on wood panel, 24 x 24 inches



Ken Weathersby

 181, 2011, acrylic and graphite on canvas with removed and flipped area, 30 x 24 inches

.

On Facebook recently I asked my friends who work in geometric abstraction to send me an image of a recent work of theirs in which the diamond or rhomboid is a significant element. I thought that using Facebook in this way would be an interesting angle on an interesting angle. I wasn’t after dictionary precision (rhomboid: a parallelogram with adjacent sides of unequal lengths, or an equilateral parallelogram; diamond: another name for rhombus); I flunked geometry in tenth grade and never looked back. Rather I was, and am, interested in an artist’s visual interpretation of those shapes.

Over the course of a week, some five dozen images appeared in my inbox: compelling shapes united by their geometric aggressiveness, wooze-inducing angles and/or on-point position. Unlike rectilinear shapes with angles perpendicular to a horizontal plane, diamonds and rhomboids are wildly dynamic, punching through their perimeters to capture the space around them or holding it with equipoise, or sometimes both. Elongated shapes play with our perspective. Eccentric angles skew with our perception of plane. Actual dimension further confounds our expectation of planarity.

Louise P. Sloane

Navajo, 1984, encaustic, 48 x 48 inches
 

Joanne Mattera

Romb, 2011, encaustic on panel, 45 x 45 inches

.

I selected 34 images that appealed to my sensibilities while at the same time underscoring and expanding the concept of the post (the genesis of which is exemplified by my own image, above). The images that best fit my concept found a spot in the lineup; the best of those made me adjust my thinking about the lineup itself, for here the scrolling sequence is how you see the work, a very different visual experience from the white box installation or the catalog page-turn.

The works in this scroll-down reflect a variety of ideas: tectonic shift, Archimedian displacement, spiritual thinking, a textile sensibility, references to the body, constructivist principles, optical challenge, formal push/pull, and the pure pleasure of geometric abstraction.  Materiality, another of my interests, is very much in evidence here as well. What follows is a curated post, Rhomboid Rumba.

George Ortman

Blue Diamond, 1961; oil, collage and wood on masonite; 60 x 48 inches 

Grace DeGennaro

Indigo Series #38, 2010, gouache on paper, 30 x 22 inches

Karen Freedman

Ruche 0399, 2011, encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches

Mary Judge

Tumulus 1, 2011, powdered pigment on folded paper, 8 x 18 inches.

J.T. Kirkland

Fracture_009, 2011, acrylic and polyacrylic on maple plywood, 46 x 23 inches

Evan Read

 Untitled (Concentric Rectangles N. 1), 2011, inkjet on photo matte paper, 17 x 32 inches

Laura Moriarty
Sinkhole, 2009, encaustic on panel, 8 x 10 x 6 inches

Gudrun Mertes Frady

Cool Blue, 2009, oil and metallic pigments on wood, 18 x 18 inches

Dennis Meier

2011-04-09 111, 2011, digital image

Don Voisine

 Off Register, 2010, oil on wood, 16 x 17 inches; courtesy McKenzie Fine Art, New York City.

Steven Baris

 Nested Forms #7, 2011, acrylic on shaped plexiglass, 13 x 13 inches

Marc Cheetham

Untitled, 2011; acrylic, canvas on canvas, 19.5 x 19.5 inches

Richard Bottwin

Facade #6, 2011, ash veneer on birch poly and acrylic color, 17 x 27 x 8 inches

Ted Larsen

Cross Bar, reclaimed  steel and annealed wire, 23 x 31 x 3 inches; courtesy Clark Gallery, Lincoln, Mass.

Altoon Sultan

#13, 2011, hand-dyed wool and egg tempera on linen, 11.75 x 13.5 inches

Lynda Ray

Red Trace, 2007, encaustic on panel, 40 x 48 inches

Julie Karabenick

Composition 93, 2010, acrylic on canvas 45 x 45 inches

Sharon Butler

Brightly Colored Separates 2, 2010, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches
 

Jeanne Heifetz

Geometry of Hope: Cobalt, Emerald, 2009, acid-etched glass hand stitched to stainless steel mesh, 20 x 20 inches

Debra Ramsay

In Half Twice, Black with Blue, 2011; various papers, cotton thread, pins; 16 x 10.5 inches

Bernard Klevickas

Untitled (emergence), 2010, cut-up plastic food contrainers and aluminum pop rivets, 19 x 15 x 3 inches

Chris Ashley

Black Drawing 22, 2009, acrylic on paper, 14 x 11 inches

Rachel Beach

Stack, 2010; oil and acrylic on plywood, reclaimed lumber; 51 x 17 x 10 inches

Connie Goldman

Arena 111, 2007, oil on panel, 23.5 x 20

Jeffrey Cortland Jones

Hoke's Run, 2011, enamel on acrylic panel, 12 x 12 inches

Matt Morris

Amuse-bouche, 2009; spray enamel and paint, yarn poppom, map pin on wall; 41 x 96 inches

Oriane Stender

Self/image (large collarbone), 2001, photographs and thread, 31 x 20 inches

Ward Jackson

Point and Line to Plane, 1963, acrylic on canvas, 37 x 37 inches; Courtesy David Richard Contemporary, Santa Fe

Doug Holst

Untitled, 2009, acrylic on wood, 12 x 12 inches

Related post: My New Best Friends