Three Parts Whole features new work by noted Icelandic artists Finnbogi P�tursson, Hrafnkell Sigurdsson, and �var Valgardsson. The work is diverse, and is meant to be so. P�tursson�s suspended video camera swinging like a pendulum as it briefly displays its own �view� on a monitor, as well as his time-based pencil drawing on the wall; Sigurdsson�s enthralling photographs of sculpture-like chunks of ice and snow fallen from automobiles and his photographic construction displaying distant mountains, the sky, and an exploding volcano; and Valgardsson�s spare yet captivating wall works made of aluminum, along with a large crumpled blue ball fashioned from a single sheet of painted paper, reveal distinct, highly idiosyncratic artistic sensibilities. These distinct sensibilities cohere in an exhibition full of correspondences, some obvious, and others much more subtle. Related colors, shapes, textures, and motion (whether actual or implicit) course through the exhibition. Compact and contained works suggest distances and immensities: the sky, horizon lines, land formation and convulsion, the ceaseless rhythm of waves. Works dealing in physicality, tactility, and optical power are also marvelously evocative, and able to induce rapt contemplation. On one level a celebration of pure visual pleasure, Three Parts Whole also celebrates the multifaceted �conversation� that develops between the participating artists.
Gregory Volk is a New York-based art critic and curator, as well as an Associate Professor in the School of the Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia.
