In Form, Space and Material, three artists—David DiMichele, Valerie Wilcox, and A.M. Rousseau—invite viewers to engage with art not as mere representation, but as an active, tactile dialogue. This exhibition echoes the early innovations of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky whose embrace of unconventional materials and abstraction challenged the boundaries of art.
DiMichele’s striking wall pieces, composed of wood fragments, evoke a playful yet sophisticated homage to those pioneers. His work recalls Picasso’s wood constructions and Braque’s Cubist collages, transforming ordinary materials into poetic forms that defy traditional framing.
Wilcox, in contrast, blurs the line between illusion and reality using common materials, consumables, and the flawed remnants from our built environment. She creates hybrid works that celebrate the imperfect and unconventional. Her compositions evoke a sense of the uncanny, where cast-off objects find new life in reimagined, liminal forms.
Rousseau’s works are bold explorations of shape, color, and rhythm. Utilizing Flashe, metallics, and acrylics, her “Shields,” rendered in silver, black, white, and grey, conjure dynamic compositions reminiscent of a jazz improvisation. Her pieces resonate with movement and tension, creating a visual syncopation drawing in the viewer and energizing the space.
Much like the early modernists’ groundbreaking abstractions or the Surrealists’ embrace of chance and play, these artists push us to see beyond the confines of the canvas. Here, art is not a window into a closed world but an experience to be encountered, where material and form intermingle to offer new ways of seeing and being.
