Review: Gayla Lemke and Wynne Reynolds Balance Opposites in Edge Solos

A longtime Edge member and noted ceramics artist, Gayla Lemke has mounted a bittersweet show, Watch Out for the Undertow, in the gallery's front space; it's dedicated to her mother, who died a few months ago. Lemke takes on this heavy topic by contrasting the memorial character of her floor...

By Michael Paglia

May 19, 2016

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A longtime Edge member and noted ceramics artist, Gayla Lemke has mounted a bittersweet show, Watch Out for the Undertow, in the gallery's front space. The exhibit is dedicated to her mother, who died a few months ago.
Lemke takes on this heavy topic by contrasting the memorial character of her floor pieces with their lively surfaces. The totems are abstract and brightly colored, which sets up a dialogue between their sober shapes and exuberant finishes. Adjacent is a wall of miniature masks, which are whimsically representational yet darkly and subtly hued, so that they encapsulate both comedy and tragedy. The beautiful — and spare — installation of the works, with the totems all together in one place and the masks in another, strikes just the perfect note.
In the back space, emerging artist Wynne Reynolds presents Flux, which takes up the dualities of life — male/female, life/death and so on. Reynolds conveys this through the use of fibers put together with metal: soft and hard. This is best shown off in the strongest piece in the show, the monumental “Nike,” a female figure created from lace, metal screening, plastic and cloth.Both solos run through May 22 at Edge Gallery, 3658 Navajo Street. For more information, call 303-477-7173 or go to edgeart.org.

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Michael Paglia is an art historian and writer whose columns have appeared in Westword since 1995; his essays on the visual arts have also been published in national periodicals including Art News, Architecture, Art Ltd., Modernism, Art & Auction and Sculpture Magazine. He taught art history at the University of Colorado Denver.

Contact: Michael Paglia