Review

"False Idols" (detail), Mixed Media Installation.

Rachelle Gardner
False Idols
(Part of Eyes of the World group show)

6-9 p.m.

Paragraph Gallery/Urban Culture Project Space
21-23 E. 12th
Kansas City, MO
816.221.5115

Hours after Third Friday: Noon-5 p.m., Thursdays and Saturdays
Runs through: April 4

Artist's site: http://www.rmgardner.com
Gallery site: http://www.urbancultureproject.org

All good artists take pains with their work. Rachelle Gardner took pain from her latest piece.

Gardner's previous cast-plaster works are smooth and sleek. False Idol , her contribution to the Eyes of the World group show, is so rough in texture that it hurt her to work on it for the long periods it demanded.

"I just finished the piece up a few hours ago," she said yesterday evening, "so my hands are pretty raw."

False Idols was more than physically harsh on Gardner. It took its pound of emotional flesh as well. This latest piece arose from her reflections on life, self-definition and the place she gives to her art.

"Never has a bit of darkness or a bit of sarcasm been in my work," she says, "but apparently, the time has come."

The mixed media piece, lit from within and without, is clustered about with tiny plaster worshippers. Gardner will join them tonight, for the performance aspect of her opening: "I get dressed up in a white costume and sit on a white pillow in front of the altar, as if I'm at Mass."

Hence the sarcasm: "I'm not all that full of myself."

(There's a smile in that statement. Gardner isn't full of herself at all.)

For Gardner to describe this as her first dark piece struck me as odd. Some of her black-and-white drawings could have been sets for the nightmares of my childhood. Perspective's a funny -- and sometimes scary -- thing.

"Visually, things are dark in my work due to the media, but conceptually things have been rather neutral or upbeat," Gardner says. "I've worked with math and proportion and nature, but those are all things that I feel positive about."

There's good reason for Gardner to feel positive about False Idols, too.  The curves and points of the cast plaster elements recall Tim Burton, Erte and H.R. Giger without being derivative. (They could also be seen as a white bonfire. You know how people like to worship flames.) Flowing over risers, white cloth draperies and  heat-treated black plastic sheets lift the gaze even as they provide visual and textural contrast. The lighting, as vital as anything tangible, is both soft and striking.

Today is going to be a busy one for Gardner. She's scheduled to speak this afternoon at the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City, during a reception for new Executive Director and CEO Harlan Brownlee. (The Arts Council, which awarded Gardner an Inspiration Grant last year, is showing her drawings and sculptures through March.)

Between the reception and tonight's opening, that's a lot of hand-shaking for Gardner. Be gentle if you get a chance to congratulate her on False Idols. Those hands went through hell to make it.