Landscapes East of the River Troy, the star of new exhibit on Fulton Street

by William Jaeger
Special to the Times Union

A landscape is always something of a description, and it describes what is outside. However much it might reflect or superimpose the will and imagination of the artist, it can't leave behind the tangible world itself without ceasing to be a landscape.

This is obvious, perhaps, but knowing this helps a viewer enjoy a new show at Fulton Street Gallery, East of the River, which might otherwise fizzle because of the many routine works in it. As it stands, taken whole, a consistency emerges in the chorus of mixed voices because everyone addresses the same subject.

That subject is quite literally the area east of the river, the Hudson River, from Albany. The paintings and photographs provide the venerable highlights, mostly old Troy and the notable bridges leading into it, with a little of rural Rensselaer County visible as well. The show reminds you how distinctive and recognizable Troy is in the simplest visual terms. If you enjoy Troy, you'll probably enjoy the show, no matter how ordinary some of the art is.

And that’s genuinely good. But the show is not meant to be a single collage of many inseparable parts. Taking the works individually is a bumpy ride — only a handful are remarkable. The photographs, in particular, are unabashedly mundane, if nice enough for a travel poster. You have to look to the more adventurous paintings for a sign of real observation and depth.

The several watercolor views by Kevin Kuhne of the same curve of a highway bridge near what the title calls the Zappala Block Producing Plant make seeing a conceptual act. The ever-so-slightly changing rendition of what is mostly just highway suggests an observer — the artist — studying a particular sight with unusual keenness, even if the site is notably drab. There is a subjective presence in Kuhne’s methodological aura here that goes beyond external facts.

A subjective, inner view of the outside world is also implied in Robert Longley’s three landscapes, each a vague, blurred scene that is layered with what looks like a sheet of wax or acetate. Handwritten text over the whole surface, though unreadable, intimates a personal take, though perhaps not connected directly to the view at hand. These small works began to seem formulaic, especially after seeing several similar versions in other formats in the last year or so, but they are still nicely poetic and enigmatic.

In terms of more purist painting, without multiple images or mixed-media complications, Ed McCartan’s black-and-white atmospheric landscape of a barren woods is dark and moody enough to get past a facile, graphic tendency in his large, fast, unfeeling brushwork. The far more conventional Brunswick, by Stephen Hennesey is so straightforward it succeeds just because what it shows is so appealing. A perfect farm scene is laid out as if for a storybook, complete with farmers, horses, cows, barns, silos, chickens and so on, all under the pink glow of a setting sun. It might seem a little too perfect to be true, but Hennesey approaches the scene with such ingenuousness that he avoids nostalgia.

There are certainly other pieces worth noting, such as the photographs by Susan Myers, which use a dramatic, pinhole effect to create moody, black-and-white views that are striking even if they don’t go anywhere beyond their unusual style. Finally, a beautiful linocut by Charles Semowich and a stamp-sized enamel depiction of River Bridge are both attractive, strongly realized works that are too easily overlooked amidst their louder company.

In the very back of the gallery are a pair of separate exhibitions that relate to East of the River. The first is a workroom, the walls lined with small Polaroid prints by Jeri Lynn Eisenberg. Each image has had its internal soft layers of chemical dye manipulated so that details and photographic tonalities are physically moved around, transformed into something soft and impressionistic. These tend to be abstracted, leaning toward surface effects even as they show little nooks and crannies around Troy.

A few of the best succeed in purely visual terms. The yellow shopping carts of Bargain Outlet (Winter) Rensselaer become surreal as the bright surfaces collide, and a pair of Go Kart Arena images are handled to the point of becoming very painterly.

The main star of the show, Troy, remains absolutely distinctive throughout, peering through these murky images just as resiliently as the diverse works in the main show downstairs. It is for the Collar City that you will want to visit.

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