Interactive works capture interplay of shadows, light
The closing party for Scott Snibbe's ''Shadow Play" is tonight at 6 at Cambridge's Art Interactive, although the show continues through next weekend. Art often makes for provocative cocktail-party conversation; ''Shadow Play," although grist for a highfalutin discussion, is also such good fun you'll want to bring the kids.
Using cameras, animation software, and light projection, Snibbe plays with his viewers' shadows. Some of his work responds to the actions of the viewer's shadow; some of it captures the shadows and replays them. In either case, the work is powerfully interactive: It compels the audience to take center stage and perform.
''Deep Walls" features a rectangular grid of light. Anyone who walks in front of the piece casts a shadow, which then takes residence in one of the boxes, repeating its actions. The format invites drama: One person might make wild gestures; two people could act out a pantomime.
Entertaining as it is, the exhibition does tackle meaty issues, examining the meaning of shadow. Our shadows are part of us, yet intangible. One piece, ''Shadow Bag," quotes Carl Jung's description of the shadow as a ''bag" containing the psyche's detritus. Here, the captured image moves erratically; when it encounters the viewer's real shade, it crumples.
''Compliant" and ''Chien" wrestle with cinema as the ultimate achievement in the aesthetic of shadows. ''Compliant" shows a pale rectangle like a movie screen, which the viewer's shadow can push around. ''Chien" ties Snibbe's fascination with film into his other theme of the psychological shadow as a potent part of the subconscious. In it, he takes images from the 1929 surrealist film ''Un Chien Andalou," by Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel, and invites the viewer to interact with them. This last piece is the most substantive but may be the least popular; the others provide a pure, fun ego buzz, and in this one, the viewer is merely a supporting player.
Coats of many
colors
The Howard Yezerski Gallery would benefit from a
skylight, because Peter Tollens's lovely, subtle paintings, now on exhibit
there, change in the shifting light. Use the dimmer in the gallery's foyer
and you'll see ''#480" adopt a mottled glow as the room darkens.
These works appear to be just one color. But Tollens starts with many coats of egg tempera on panel, then tops them off in a different color with oil paint, applied in staccato brushstrokes that give the works a texture akin to stone. The egg tempera leeches the emulsion from the oil paint, making it as delicate as a meringue, a wonderful surface over which light can play. At the same time, the undercoat peeks through, suggesting wafting veils of color.
''No. 489" features a pale blue base painted over in a color like unbleached linen. That tone and the rocklike texture give the painting an earthy feeling. Yet the oil paint looks so light, and you can see through it to the vibrant blue. It's surprisingly buoyant. Tollens's show is a testament to the versatility of the monochrome.
Also at Yezerski, Sarah Malakoff shows photographs that are part of a trend: capturing uninhabited interior scenes. This artist excels at cranking up suspense. Like Tollens, Malakoff is attuned to color and light; she shoots long exposures with tungsten film, which can skew colors in daylight. Look at ''Untitled Interior (Monopoly)," the site of a game in a log cabin. The interplay of lush wood tones and the eerie blue-green of carpet, Monopoly board, and the forest outside is as composed and rhythmic as a piece of music -- in this case, the soundtrack to a thriller.
Peeling back the
layers
Oil paint has a gossamer quality in Mary
McDonnell's paintings at Miller Block Gallery. McDonnell lays her
paintings flat on the floor and pushes the paint around with squeegees and
ice scrapers. She applies and scrapes off layers and layers of
watered-down oil paint; the resulting works feel as transparent as glass,
streaked over with rainwater and perhaps sap, or grit from smog. They are
persistently engaging; you feel as if you're always peeling away another
layer to find something new. ''Untitled (Nieces)" features three passages:
luminous peach and yellow on two sides, with a roiling center section,
bristling with texture. If this portrays three maids all in a row, as the
title might suggest, look out for the one in the middle.
McDonnell is process-oriented. Nan Tull, who has encaustics up at
Miller Block, is more of a planner, and her works -- while maintaining the
soft glow of her beeswax medium -- have a geometric precision. With their
clarity and bold forms, they harken back to work she did 15 years ago.
Black angles crackle through the pale beeswax; whitish lines radiate
around them. The entire body of work takes you through a journey of
fracturing and mending, but it all feels electrically charged and iconic.
When two angles move toward each other like arrows and kiss, they echo
Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel rendering of the hands of God and
Adam. 
