COLOR-FIELD ABSTRACTION WITH A LITERALLY SPORTY ASPECT, PFA Gallery’s “Re/Assemble” offers the work of two kindred artists who repurpose materials used in yoga and sailing. Primarily collagists, Alex Ebstein and Reed Anderson array such elementary geometric figures as circles, triangles, and diamonds. These are inherently flat, but the resulting artworks are not: Made partly of sliced yoga mats, Ebstein’s assemblages have heft that’s magnified with the addition of beads, twine, and other 3D ornaments. Anderson’s pieces are made of spinnaker fabric and are therefore thinner, but can hang independently in space rather than hug the wall.
Both artists endow simple forms with intriguing physicality. Anderson, who’s based in western Massachusetts, employs just a handful of simple shapes, supplemented by the occasional number. Yet his pieces\ assert themselves spatially. The largest is mounted perpendicularly to the wall to give it depth, and draped so it appears to careen through the space.
Ebstein, a Baltimorean, contrasts right-angled motifs with curved ones, as in the particularly elegant “Mirrored Petals.” The pattern in this piece is the result not of collage but of printing with PLA, a colorant for plastics. That makes the work look more like a traditional painting, but beneath the bright hues the texture of the yoga mat is clearly visible. Retaining evidence of their materials’s original purpose and essential qualities is crucial to both artists.
