“X” MARKS SOME OF THE SPOTS in “Crosshatch: Making Networks,” a four-artist show at PFA Gallery’s downtown location. The bulk of the work is by Maryland-based artist Francie Hester, who crisscrosses twinned spars of metal-emulating Plexiglas. The two largest of these wall-hugging sculptures have patinas that suggest oxidized copper or steel. The smaller ones, which line the venue’s hallway, are covered with diverse patterns that resemble collaged paper. In both cases, the complex surfaces effectively contrast the elemental form.
Tim Doud, once known primarily as a portrait painter, revisits the format of Gene Davis’s best-known pictures with three vertical stripe paintings. Doud makes the design his own by applying the pigment in stripes that gently blur into each other. The D.C. artist also experiments with form by leaning the painted panels against the wall to achieve a sculptural quality that recalls the work of another Washington colorist, Anne Truitt. But Doud’s striped slabs are jauntier and less austere than Truitt’s minimalist pillars.
Parallel lines also characterize the work of Joseph Shetler, who uses silverpoint to inscribe banks of thin, orderly marks. The D.C. artist frames these lines, which can be either horizontal or vertical, with single-color borders that are smudgy and irregular. “Untitled (verde valley)” also arrays the bordering green under the lines, but rendered softer and fainter. Viewers may find the artworks meditative even without knowing that they draw from Shetler’s strict Mennonite upbringing in Indiana.
The least geometric works are by Seth Adelsberger, who swirls layers of gesso and acrylic paint on canvas. Although the Baltimore artist forgoes straight lines and right angles, he is something of a minimalist. Each of his three textured paintings arrays a single shade of purple, greenish blue, or bluish green on a black field. That the effect is luminous is entirely apt. The artists of “Crosshatch” are as concerned with voluptuous surfaces as they are with recurring patterns.