Leo Saul Berk at Howard House

Leo Saul Berk often employs wood to create wall sculptures that suggest real or imaginary landscapes. In previous exhibitions, he traced the natural grain lines of wood veneers, producing a body of work that closely resembled elevation contour maps. In his recent show "New Worlds," the correlation to maps was pushed still further: photographs were used as models for sculptural topographies in which gradations of shadow and light are translated into height and depth.

Using Rhino, a computer program that allows creation of both solid and surface models, Berk transforms two-dimensional depictions of three-dimensional sites--in this case land and sky--back into three dimensions. A computer-controlled router carves the majority of Berk's reliefs out of alternating layers of masonite and MDF (medium density fiberboard), resulting in earth-toned striations.

A number of Berk's works use Edward Weston's iconic Western landscape images of the 1920s and '30s as a starting point. Weston emphasizes clear formal construction, finely rendered tonalities and details that are evenly sharp from foreground to background; Berk likewise employs materials for maximum clarity. Yet his sculptures do not attempt to mirror the sites that inspired the photographs. In Oceano (2005), the rectangular format of the 24-by-32-by-2-inch work recalls its photographic source, whereas the modulating forms are closer to abstract painting than to the dunes in Weston's photographs.

A substantially larger work, Archipelago (77 by 92 inches), consists of loosely connected and softly undulating reliefs up to 2 inches deep that stand out starkly against an expanse of white wall. They contrast the material and the immaterial. The wall acts as sea for these massed islands.

Approximately half of the carved works displayed are based on photographs of clouds. The tangible contours of works such as Thin Air, Thunderdome and Ship of Theseus, all from 2005 (the latter carved out of gatorboard, a laminated foam panel) both contrast with and correspond to the shifting particles of moisture that are their inspiration. Here Berk creates a tactile reality out of what was merely a photographic moment, crafting his work, so to speak, out of thin air.

Berk has also created a series of drawings that are two-dimensional counterpartsto his reliefs, by attaching various colored pens to the arm of a router. The pens' pigment-based sparkle gel ink produces glittering diagrams of air and landscapes, the majority of which are executed on white paper and flaunt multiple hues (Curl of Hair, 2005, executed on blue paper and drawn with a single pen, is an exception). Drawings titled Thunderdome and Thin Air offer colored views of the wall sculptures of the same names. In the former, a vaguely atomic shape glows bright green, while the latter is executed in tight red and blue lines that optically result in a luminescent mauve.

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