Franziska Furter at Schleicher + Lange

The young Swiss artist Franziska Furter makes vividly realistic, black-and-white ink drawings and paper sculptures that blur the distinction between two and three dimensions. The focal point of the exhibition "Drift" was Monstera (all works 2006-07), a mass of large black tropical leaves made of paper that was suspended from the ceiling by wire branches. Snaking through the gallery in midair, Monstera was aggressive but fragile, like the foliage in a lush dark jungle, or like large beating wings. Standing beneath it, we were surrounded by shadow and form, and the white of the wall flickered through the black paper as we shifted our eyes. Here, Furter struck a balance between weightlessness and a creeping, ominous gravity.

The large ink drawing Remind Me is of a tranquil lakeside scene. It is impressive in its imposing scale (more than 13 feet wide and nearly 7 feet high) and degree of detail. Deep shadows in overhanging trees, which recede sharply into space, alternate with the glare of sunlight. Though the drawing has a strongly peaceful quality and seems to exist out of time, it was based, according to the gallery, on a contemporary Japanese manga image. This connection, like Furter's drawing style itself, reminds us of the visual thread that runs through graphic representation from old newsprint to the modern digital age.

Less successful is sculptural work that doesn't convincingly reinvent the material with which it was made. Black Hole (2007), for instance, is a spiky wooden ball. A bit like a black sea urchin, it's not as transformative as her other sculptural pieces or as absorbing as her drawings. Furter's best work approaches us as form and then recedes into image, without losing its place in the physical world.

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COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning