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Two Mainland Shows Stand Out During ABMB Santiago Rubino’s Sueño, Spinello Gallery and Group Show, Dorsch Gallery
By Michelle Weinberg
“Angel,” 2006 Pen, Pencil and Ink on Paper
With an attention-grabbing graphic design/marketing strategy and an even stronger roster of artists, Spinello Gallery (opened two years ago as “Red Dot Project” and rechristened “Spinello” last December) is steadily making headway in the Miami art scene and beyond. On view during Art Basel Miami Beach are the dreamlike pencil drawings of a young Argentine-born artist named Santiago Rubino. Filled with references to primitive Italian painting, 18th century portraiture, Hollywood noir and low-brow art seamlessly rolled together, Rubino’s drawings are haunting. His subtle draftsmanship, the smudgy gradations of gray in each work, the retro illustrations that animate the margins of the larger drawings and the obsessive attention to detail all come together to complete an eccentric aesthetic. The gallery installation, on view through Jan. 6, is over the top; burgundy walls and dark frames exude a gothic high-kitsch ambiance. Spinello Gallery is located at 3436 N. Miami Ave., Miami. Call 305-576-0208.
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Magali Wilensky’s “Vigor”
Dorsch Gallery, presided over by Brook Dorsch, has long provided a welcome mat for idiosyncratic tendencies in the local art scene. The vast, open space genially supports an eclectic mix of artistic approaches, perhaps with a stronger commitment to painting. Look for works by Elisabeth Condon, an LA native whose work and career is on a fast track, seemingly everywhere at once. Her vivid paintings in the My Florida series demonstrate her rapacious grasp of paint media, bending watercolor, acrylic and oil to match her spontaneous, trippy sensibility, executed with copious technical finesse. Also at Dorsch is a young artist newly graduated from Miami International University of Art & Design, Magali Wilensky. Her rolled and tucked fabric wall sculptures range in size from an Oreo cookie to a side of beef, and they resemble cross-sections of bodies or micro-organisms.
They are exquisitely crafted and delightful to look at. |
