Review

"Personal Journey", Hand-Carved Ceramic.

Erin Reid
Beyond A Straight Line

Patrons Gallery
Shawnee Mission North High School, Rm. 157
7401 Johnson Dr.
Overland Park, KS
913.993.6900

Hours: 7:40 a.m.-2:40 p.m. Monday-Friday
Runs through: April 24

Gallery site: http://www.patronsgallery.com

The senior exhibitions at Shawnee Mission North High School showcase young artists at milestone points in their lives and careers. Erin Reid's show, Beyond A Straight Line, is the culmination of a journey marked by twists and turns.

They're metaphorical in one sense;  many of the ceramic pieces in the show changed significantly from conception to realization. In another sense, the shifts are physical: Reid's hands-on bending of straight lines and regular surfaces to produce a different sort of clay animation. 

My work over the past year has been focused on the creation of three-dimensional forms from simple two-dimensional shapes, Reid writes in her artist's statement. It stems from my interest in linear relationships, which first manifested itself in ceramics with the idea behind a basic slab piece. By altering and moving away from the straight lines of square slabs, I discovered that I could achieve more depth and movement in my work.

The first piece Reid produced with that approach is the simple and lovely Helix, which stands near the center of the gallery space. That's a fitting place for it, as the rest of her ceramics work spiraled outward from that beginning.

The DNA of Helix is apparent in several of its offspring: the three-part raku Crystals, the swirling Kite and the gracefully blocky Personal Journey (pictured above).

The last piece looks as though Reid cut out a series of shapes and put them together. In truth, the process was both simpler and more complex. Reid began -- and ended -- with three slabs, hand-carving the clay to produce the illusion of construction.

"Personal Journey" was the result of an assignment on "body-mapping" in first semester, Reid writes, and is one of the few pieces that I designed with a specific concept in mind. The result is a self-portrait of sorts ... a representation of my linear nature, and how I've grown and opened up over the last year.

Other pieces invoke Helix less directly, but no less effectively. There's a definite rotation to Reid's stack of Coins, and a good deal of swirling going on in the wavelike Swells. Reid echoes the construction of the latter piece in her setup of the show, using undulating sheets of white paper to divide the gallery into intimate viewing areas.

The show also includes a small selection of metal pieces and a collection of  dreamlike black-and-white photographs Reid took this year in her Introduction to Photography class.

Yet another photograph, this one in color, is a two-dimensional stand-in for one of Reid's ceramic works. Pieces couldn't be here for this show -- because it's on display at the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, as part of the
Arts Council of Johnson County's "Shooting Stars" exhibit.

Showing in a prestigious museum even before her high school graduation -- that's another promising turn for this young artist. It's a safe bet that there will be more to come.

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