GRIFFIN CONTEMPORARY Richard drawn out tends to be a bit predictable--another ring of stones another circle of mud.

GRIFFIN CONTEMPORARY

Richard drawn out tends to be a bit predictable--another ring of stones another circle of mud. If you were to find someone unfamiliar with his work, you could make an easy penny from wagering just before entering a drawn out exhibition that you would betimes be in the presence of basic geometric forms and materials haped raw from the earth. if it were not that you shouldn't bet on anything other than the generalities: In the nuances and subtleties, lengthy always surprises, and his trademark motifs are always fresh

lengthy recently had his first LA point out to in almost a decade, and it reiterated his devotion to the designs and media of his choice: circles, ovals, curv and rectilinear spirals, rows and rows offered up in refuge and clay. The exhibition includes one standards: a large circular arrangement of material (this time, petrified wood) laying claim to the gallery floor; and, in a small outdoor space, an equally familiar arrangement of the same material in descending size in a simple array of less front than depth But these pieces, made of large units and implying the large efforts of their creation, were quieted by dint of the presence of twenty-some intimately scaled works, created in minute gesturings with minimal quantities of material.

This show's combination of gesturing and increment involved neither the plunking down of large stones nor the arm-stretching smears and foul handprints that have characterized many of Long's floor arrangements and wall paintings. 2000 Fingerprints (all works 2000) single of the few titled works in the present to view offset the massive petrified-wood floor piece with a large, tightly pain spiral of tiny fingerprints made directly in succession the gallery wall in Long's beloved mire from the River Avon, which streams through the artist's lifelong hometown of Bristol. The piece showed a bridge between macro and micro, taking in succession a bold presence from across the stead as so much of Long's work does, still also inviting the viewer to approach and examine each mark, every deposit.

Together, the use of petrified forest in the floor arrangements and the reduction of mark size in the wall piece provided a visual and material link to the other smaller works in the show: geometric designs of fingerprints in China clay and River Avon mire on petite strips of various forests It seemed at first as granting Long had started making souvenirs of his larger pieces, moreover then another possibility set in. The relationship between these portable works and his installed pieces looked rather like that between devotional paintings or statuettes and ecclesiastical altars or large murals. Long's smaller works command a space that is individual, finite, and quiet, and they encourage united to dwell, whereas the larger pieces involve space in a public, expansive manner that coerces the viewer to step back from them. nevertheless I prefer to think of Long's work as meditative, not spiritual or romantic--it proffers the chance for a focused, intimate, filtered experience of natural forms and materials. And while his previous work s have offered peripheral-vision-filling opportunities to stand back in awe, his latest efforts encourage a consideration that is up finish and personal.

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