"Danny Rolph: Paradiso"

Danny Rolph offers us a hint of the future to come, in nine major paintings, acrylic on canvas, all completed this year or last. It is a utopian future, airy, bright, with open spaces, colorful, and filled with vibrant energy.

“Paradiso” might have been called Dragster as well, as there are three paintings – Dragster 2, Dragster 4 and Dragster 5 – that reveal Rolph’s fondness for high velocity. Dragster 5 may be the most powerful in the exhibition, dazzling with vivid colors. Luscious red lips reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe entice at bottom left, suggesting sensuality, or perhaps the reward for a victory. Despite this, I sensed the existence of a laboratory, testing the frontiers of scientific technology. Either way, it is a delicious ferment.

Dragster 2 is complex (they all are), and is perhaps most directly suggestive of roads. I felt a sense of being drawn into a vortex. In Dragster 4 two teal-colored flat planes are centrally-located and dominate, competing with a dark blue irregular blob-shaped image entering from bottom right. This seems to have more perspective, and gives the impression of the various elements floating in space.

Tuesdays-Fridays, 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m.; Saturdays, 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Starts: Oct. 28. Continues through Nov. 15, 2014