Pattern Recognition

M. Ho, Untitled collage on newspaper (2005, detail), 22 inches by 13 1/2 inches.

Four artists plus one curator equals The New Plaid.

by Robin Rice

During the time Claudia Gould was selecting artists to participate in Arcadia University Gallery's latest show, she happened to learn that Burberry planned to execute its signature bland plaid in bold new colors. This resonated humorously with an overarching relationship between the four artists she chose. Because Carl Fudge, M. Ho, Anne Skoogfors and Bruce Pollock can wring surprises from repeated, but not quite identical, elements, she dubbed the show "The New Plaid."

Gould, director of the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, feels the artists she chose from among 80 portfolios each "have developed a new way to look at the repeated or reproduced image by blurring and expanding the traditional grid and opening up its uses, implications and possibilities." She also noted a link between this contemporary manipulation of repeated patterning and the Pattern and Decoration Movement of the 1970s.

There's a satisfying sense of balance and variety in "A Closer Look: 6" (the formal title of the show), which is the sixth exhibition in this series drawn from exhibitors in Arcadia's biennial "Works on Paper" juried shows.

The most striking body of work in the show is Anne Skoogfors' mesmerizing grid of scanned images of flowers from her own garden. They somehow transcend a possible reading as really, really nice greeting cards. Skoogfors, who was a floral designer and is an amateur gardener, evokes the jewellike colors and petal-edge, leaf-veined minutiae of Netherlandish still life. But there's a difference: Those still lifes deliberately reminded the viewer of the brevity of life by contrasting the vivid freshness of the fruits of the earth with reminders of death, often represented by insects or dead game. One might see fatality in the severed stems of these luscious blossoms, but I think Skoogfors' aim is more delightful than minatory.

Similarly emphasizing flowerlike color, M. Ho is showing work literally based on the front page of The New York Times. Her nine unframed, unmatted sheets of newspaper were collaged following the invasion of Iraq. The fragile orderly pages are abstractly gorgeous. Ho says that her decision to cover all areas of text with blocks of colored paper (perhaps origami paper) grew out of a desire for "more meaning." She replaces "the supposedly objective writing" with obvious and pleasing fabrications. Ho covered some photographs with new ones, but wittily preserved a rosy, unmediated off-register picture of Laura Bush.

Carl Fudge, who has made a successful move to Brooklyn since his participation in "Works on Paper" in 1990 and 1991, has a one-person show at the Print Center here concurrent with his Arcadia show. He says, "I find it hard to make an image I like, so when I do, I sort of beat it to death." Fudge's initial process is almost identical to sampling in music. He develops a Cubist-related linear pattern from sources like anime, 17th-century erotic Japanese prints, and Andy Warhol's camouflage pattern, then he scans, digitizes and manipulates it until he is pleased.

Screened onto multiple canvases, the black outlines are painted in a variety of ways. There is an elegance to mirrored elements and scrolling flourishes that draw from science charts, cartooning and domestic decoration like wallpaper or china patterns.

Painter Bruce Pollock took a risk by making a large drawing directly on the wall of the gallery. His first venture with this technique is delicate and atmospheric. What he calls "organic puzzles" composed of many sizes of hexagons, which reflect the exterior contours of a perspectival drawing of a cube, are clustered and scattered like jewels or cells. Earlier pattern clusters are layered under thin white paint to delicately suggest an enveloping infinity. Though unique in the show, like the other works, Pollock's drawing suggests both an underlying orderly matrix and underlying chaos, with its own particular brand of order. And, always, pleasure in the material beauty of things.

A Closer Look: 6 Through April 24, Arcadia University Art Gallery, 215-572-2131