Art generates a particular kind of alchemy. Artists wrangle ideas and materials into a gesture, object, or image that transcends language to make sense of an unruly world. Viewers, the people who witness or experience art, expand this transformative act when they add their points of view, amplifying or challenging the artist’s meaning. Art is conveyed both through and to us.
It seems fitting that at this moment, when little makes sense in our wobbling and punch-drunk world, an antidote is offered in the work of Holly Ballard Martz. Her show, “Past Perfect Future Tense,” runs through May 17, 2025 at Greg Kucera Gallery in Pioneer Square.
Upon entry to the gallery, one is virtually surrounded by punching bags suspended in mid-air and cocooned inside coverings of antique quilts. Navigating around the torso-sized bags reveals texts on each side; with the deft wordplay that Martz is known for, the texts explore the tension that women face between unwanted attention and the equally-undesirable devaluation and invisibility that comes with age. In “(Dis)missed,” the word appears on one side, broken into a vertical stack three letters wide and three lines high. On the other side, the letters “XX” allude to the chromosome pair associated with the female gender, but also to total obliteration. Martz extends this tension through her wall-mounted quilt pieces, where misogynist and ageist labels appear. The artist reclaims these slurs using encrusted seed beads stitched to the damaged and visibly-stained fabric; “hag,” “CRONE,” and “Witch” are fastidiously camouflaged to match the quaint calico patterns of the quilt squares.
Framing the perimeter of the gallery are sinuous and glittering wall pieces displayed in a variety of clusters; some are fully exposed and some are enclosed in bespoke frames and vitrines. Allusions to the transience of life weave through each piece. Certain pieces taken from the body, such as the solitary gray braid of “Faded Glory.” Mounted on an oval frame—like Victorian-era hairwork meant to preserve the memory of a loved one—the braid hangs from under a lead tire weight. The hair succumbs to and illustrates gravity, a force echoed in the artist’s other works that point to the slow and inevitable fall to earth.
In this world where bodily autonomy is threatened in the same measure that commonly-held notions of unattainable and generic beauty are proffered, Martz’s work celebrates and accepts alternatives. Her pieces, smartly constructed both in form and concept, transform what might otherwise be unwelcome or discarded into glittering and enduring truths.
Another kind of magic is at work in the densely-populated new paintings of Anthony White. His pieces travel in time, moving fluidly back to the lush still lifes of the 17th century Dutch Golden Age, recalling sensuously rendered images full of symbols and coded visual language. In that era, overblown flowers, candles, and skulls were coded depictions of human mortality, while luxury trade goods such as porcelain, silk, and tea cataloged the emergent wealth of early-stage capitalism.
White deploys these conventions of abundance and symbolism as well, but even with recognizable historical references, his works are undeniably contemporary. He paints not with pigment suspended in oil, but with thin strands of melted, richly-colored plastic called polylactic acid (PLA), a product commonly used for 3D model drawing. As a result, his finely rendered images emerge out of an exquisite web of tiny raised lines, shimmering textured surfaces on panel.
His subject matter is front-loaded chaos, a world within a world of superabundance, an image-saturated field of media, communication, pleasure, and status suggesting a shelf is stacked to an improbable density. In the center of the image, we see a luxury-brand gift basket containing candy and bottles of tawny liquid, a small sculpture of bronze-colored clasped hands, a computer-mounted camera eye for video calls, a digital clock, a half-eaten sandwich, and a “real” hand reaching in from the right and holding a disk with a fish rendered in Coast Salish formline style. And wait, there’s more: a spray of stickers, logos, glimpses of words and icons appearing and receding in apparently strategic locations. Are they interruptions from the virtual world in what is rendered as an almost tangibly real space, or are they pointing us to find deeper meaning?
White’s work layers reference upon reference, from everyday items to the largest cultural narratives. The density within the picture plane invites all kinds of looking, and all kinds of finding. Engaging this work is like pulling a Tarot card: the dense jumbled imagery presents a world open to myriad interpretations, and the magic emerges when we pick one and respond.
Kristin Tollefson
Kristin L. Tollefson is an artist and educator based in Tacoma, Washington.
Greg Kucera Gallery presents Holly Ballard Martz’s exhibit “Past Perfect Future Tense” through May 17. Anthony White’s exhibit runs from May 22-June 28 with a reception Thursday, June 5, 6-8 p.m. and a public artist talk on Saturday, June 7 at 12 p.m. Located at located at 212 - 3rd Avenue South in Seattle, Washington, the gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. For information, visit www.gregkucera.com.
