One Dreams Up Another: A Strong Showing at Delhi’s Bushel Collective

One Dreams Up Another: A Strong Showing at Delhi’s Bushel
Collective

by Patricia Wadsley

     Materiality is a buzzword in contemporary art circles or to use
another phrase, “the medium is the message,” and mediums do
come to the fore in the works of Kelli Cain, and Anthony Chase.
These two artists currently make up the two person show “One
Dreams Up Another” at Bushel, the airy and welcoming art and
performance collective in Delhi, New York. These artists’
compelling works, created using plaster, for Chase, and clay for
Cain evoke singularity and meaning through the artists’ choice of
substances.
      Anthony Chase, trained in theater, and film, also spent 25 years
as a master craftsman, specializing in high-end Venetian
plastering for residential interiors. Chase’s work and travel took
him to the world’s ancient cities—where a cobblestone walkway, a
centuries old wall in disrepair , or stones lying beneath covered
edifices, formed images in his mind which never left him. Several
years ago, as Chase pondered a new direction, his friends urged
him to transfer his tradesman skills to fine art. He did so, and the
results are abstract sculptural paintings filtered through his
memories . There is not a paintbrush in sight. His compositions,
colors, and materials such as the plaster, marble chips and
marble dust , graphite, webbing, and fabric are manipulated by
workman’s tools such as trowels , chisels , scrapers, and
screwdrivers, the last to etch in the symbols which resonate in

      Chase’s life. The results are quiet, compelling and “contemplative”
abstract paintings.

      His work Saraban is first appreciated as an elegant abstract,
and then upon closer viewing one perceives it as a thousand
year old cobblestone walkway viewed from high above. Chase’s
palette most often relies on the colors of warmer climates: terra
cottas, truffles, pinks with highly saturated hues for punctuation.
In Saraban, Chase first applied Venetian plaster as a textured
base, building up some areas into mounds, then smoothing out
the surface, adjusting pigment and marble dust throughout the
process, to reveal glistening spots of color. This process of
building and scraping reveals the understories—the “palimpsests”
over time, the histories of man’s handiwork. The final touches,
Chase’s barely discernible objects and figures-are then etched in.
Another standout, very different from the foregoing, is Purge, a
high gloss, highly textured almost geometrically arranged black
painting achieved by building up the desired texture, and treating
it with gunmetal polish for a high sheen. Chase leaves a center
image of silver. Some of Chase’s paintings are inspired by night
sailing, during which he stares into the darkened sky with only the
moon as illumination.
       Chase comes from a family of professionals, doctors, lawyers
and the like. “I think I was the black sheep of the family, because
I could never settle down,” he says. But his wanderings are
proving to be to his advantage.
The impressive works of ceramicist and sculptor, Kelli Cain
range from detailed representations of sea creatures, to purely
abstract vessels and objects. She shares with Chase a love for
geological materials which evoke hidden worlds, but her hidden
world sometimes lies under the sea. “I’m obsessed with
plankton,” she says, “The first 20 feet under the sea are
fascinating. Also, I believe that if you go deep enough into the
sea, you’ll get to outer space.” Her piece Jennies Two is one of
the few wheel-thrown pieces in the show. It evokes not only a sea
creature, but a space station, One object in her series Upwelling
again recalls a sea creature, this time fossilized. In several other
pieces in the Upwelling series, the hand-sculpted pieces resemble
ceremonial vessels used in ancient times. The clean white
Upwelling 10 also draws on her underwater leanings—the glaze is
made of makes cuttlefish bone, silver ash and lithium. Upwelling
12, a vessel with a glazed background and eye like abstractions
coating the entirety of the piece is made from paint stains and
the dregs of a rusty farm cistern. For many vessels in the series,
Cain states, “the mouths of the vessels connect the inner and the
outside world.”
      “I start by drawing,” she says. “Usually I think of animals and
bone,” and I feel that is the starting point for the organic nature of
these pieces. The organic structure of the pieces give them life,
and make them seem to breathe.”
There might be a reason for that. Like Chase, Cain also came
from film, as well as animation and music production. She then
started earning her living as a production ceramicist, making
ceramics on a large scale, before embarking on her solo pursuit.
But her training as a filmmaker is still with her. “I view these
pieces as one frame in a film, “she says. “They are like stills
taken from a scene captured and frozen.”

     Originally from New Jersey, Cain lives in Delhi where she and
her husband raise peonies, and also manage Luck Dragon, their
art supply store and workshop next to Bushel on Delhi’s Main
Street.
      More of Cain and Chase’s work will be shown at Half Hidden, the
Bushel extension, upstairs from the main gallery on just two days
–August 22 and August 30 from 11-2. One Dreams Up Another,
in Bushel’s main gallery runs through September 13 during
regular hours.
   If you would like more information about One Dreams Up
Another, Bushel’s opening times and other events, check out
bushelcollective.org