Fusion: Allen Smith & Connie Zehr

Curated by Kathrine Page, this exhibition explores the fusion of organic materials such as sand, glass, and color, as symbols of metaphysical experience and observation. Allen C. Smith’s large-scale paintings give evidence to his process of selected color. The frenzy of polychromatic lines echo the artist’s emotional responses to music. Though the artist strives for minimalistic abstraction, his work evokes fascination with geometric design and random theory. In one series, the color application order is determined by the toss of a coin. This random activity releases the artist from the weight of color choice and offers the artist the same experience as that of his viewers, random or otherwise. Connie Zehr’s on-site, ambitious-scaled, ephemeral installations of diminutive mounds of sand and glass finials explore the natural world of topography and movement through space. They are part panoramic landscape, part ephemeral earthwork, part painterly with the addition of dry pigments, and part meditative. The fusion of the two artists brings the viewer into their own metaphysical experience as a unifying and transformative participant.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website