Liminal: occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold. “Liminal Spaces” at Jason Vass gallery, which opened Saturday night, occupies a position of cool, whether the boundary is mixed-media wall art, free-standing sculpture, or something in between.

Perfectly paired artists Ty Pownall and Yvette Gellis drew lively, engaged crowds to their two solo shows, featuring works that were large scale, abstract, and the ultimate in mind-blowing visuals.

Gellis’s works had viewers circling, both for their stunning size and the Alice-in-Wonderland way they seemed to slip and ooze off the walls and onto the floor. Oil, acrylic, graphite and original photo-transfer large wall works like Liminal Space Dark and Movement and Change Within Stability #4 were paired with the polyurethane foam, oil and acrylic floor work 3-Dimensional Liminal Space. Gellis shared with me that the floor piece was re-worked, the foam sliced, a process that wasn’t easy. Viewers commented that they felt like they’d “entered a portal,” with her works.

Pownall’s loose sand, steel, and dry pigment with spray paint floor works such as the Relative Density of Moments and Interrupted Upward Slope are geometric fascinations, their texture like abstract, frozen sand-castles suspended in space.

“We’re very different,” Gellis laughed, “but seeing our works together—it fits.”

Yvette Gellis

And along with looking great, the artists’ work is worthy of an extended look.

Ty Pownall

Clutching Lagunitas beer and munching on pretzels from the gallery’s rear-room bar, viewers studied the complex, delicate balancing of Pownall’s Surface Tension, one viewer wondering “How did he carry that in here?” Pownall’s more reserved wall art, created with spackle, acrylic and spray paint on panels, shaped mysterious, precise shapes. “It could’ve come from another planet,” another viewer observed, and there is a certain unearthly vibe from these sleek monochromatic works.

Instagram-worthy images were everywhere, as gallerist Jason Vass chatted with collectors and enthusiastic opening-night art lovers in a room buzzing with energy; this “liminal space” was crowded with viewers stepping into an art world that spun with excitement.

Photos by Genie Davis