Charles Hinman at Wooster Arts Space

Charles Hinman has been exploring the shaped support and three-dimensionality in abstract painting for over 40 years. His recent exhibition at Wooster Arts Space, focusing upon the past decade, included, in the first gallery, small relief constructions (17 by 14 by 3 inches), 2005, executed in acrylic, wood, synthetic fabric and Plexiglas. In the second gallery, larger works of varying dimensions were displayed; these consist of shaped, volumetric plywood forms projecting from painted synthetic fabric hung on the wall.

Hinman is fascinated by the various ways in which three-dimensional geometric forms interact with the plane. Actual shadows often play an integral role in his asymmetrical compositions, adding tonal richness. Such is the case in the series of larger works, each named for sites in the universe. These play off one or more sculptural volumes against a flat, irregular plane of fabric, broken into two or more zones by means of scissors and/or color. The works gain in being viewed from an angle, allowing the shadows to come into play.

Two abutted sculptural forms constitute the diagonal left edge of Orionids (2003). The top curved, roughly rectangular form, painted beige, has greater salience; the one below (painted light gray) is a curved triangle with the point facing downward. The combined height of the two sculptural parts, 76 inches, establishes that of the piece, which continues to the right in a stretch of fabric as thin and seemingly light as paper. Shaped like a horizontal rectangle whose lower right corner has been diagonally lopped off, the fabric is divided into a lighter top and a darker bottom. Significantly, a nick in the shadow cast by the meeting of the shaped volumes also marks the line where the two shades of fabric meet, a kind of "horizon" that extends across the fabric's width.

In the smaller white works that constitute the series "Space Windows: An Homage to Robert Creeley," volumetric forms seem, conceptually, to have been peeled away from the rectangular support, leaving behind a negative space that is filled with a sheet of transparent Plexiglas. Such works recall the experiments with volume, space and geometry initiated by the Constructivists nearly a century ago.

COPYRIGHT 2005 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group