Corbett vs. Dempsey

Rebecca Shore

By Jason Mojica. Time Out Chicago / Issue 218 : Apr 30 - May 6, 2009

Order emerges from chaos in Rebecca Shore's "A E i O U (and sometimes why)." At first glance, the Chicago artist's paintings come off like sheets of cookie dough stamped out by peculiar cutters. When we examine the haphazard assemblies of silhouettes and shapes more closely, however, patterns emerge: peaks and valleys, avenues and corridors, cellular systems and corrupted symmetries.

Most of Shore's two-tone paintings play with positive and negative space. Flat reds and grays vibrate against each other. Oranges and blues fight for dominance. Seen in succession, these panels seem to pulsate. Their abstracted alphanumerics at times evoke modernist Rorschach tests. But in other works, Shore eschews discernible symbols for stacked shapes based on masonry. In an earth-tone palette, she depicts the cultured stones we rarely pay attention to in daily life.

Comparing these two groups of paintings makes us question our need to recognize patterns in abstract art. How is it that, in merely altering the shapes she illustrates, Shore changes the interpretation of her work from linguistic to architectural? Why must we retrofit what may be improvised aesthetics into a system?

Whether you find rhythm or discord in Shore's intricate paintings, her clean lines and paired colors provide a cavalcade for the eyes and a conundrum for the brain.