Chaos Cheery

Mike Hammer, a young artist from Canada now living in Ojai, calls his debut solo show at the Childress Gallery “No Things,” but that handle may be deceiving. His work is very much about “things,” about art as physical, material objects, “sculpturally framed paintings,” as he calls them. The absent things in question are representational subjects.

What we find here are idiosyncratic ideas afloat in a show whose slick surfaces and symmetrical design camouflage a wild imagination. The various reference points include stained-glass windows, Abstract Expressionism, sculptural thinking and messy minimalist variations. And somehow, for all its unresolved facets, the show works, as a work in progress.

Hammer’s work falls between the cracks of existing art media. It defies the standard conception of paint-on-canvas as a primary medium for Abstract Expressionism. Instead, he works with the glossy, translucent stuff of Mylar, creating separate images on both sides of artworks suspended from the ceiling. These are works that hungrily feed off light and steer clear of the convention of art-on-a-wall.

Contradictions are part of a well-laid plan, in Hammer’s aesthetic scheme. Half the work relies on wild, freewheeling brushwork, while the other half consists of solid-color panels that resonate against each other.

The exhibition is assembled as a modular “installation,” rather than a collection of disconnected works, and the desired effect, as Hammer explains in a statement, is to generate an “atmosphere of serenity amidst chaos and chaos amidst serenity.”

If some of the flat-planed color works suggest a cool, ascetic approach, akin to minimalist painting, the colors themselves are somewhat garish and the titles reveal a livelier persona. The winking titles “Orangutan Toothache” and “Banana Snowflake,” reminiscent of new ice cream flavors, give the works a post-Pop Art identity, a Nico-meets-Austin-Powers character.

Other playful references in the art keep things light, in spite of the artist’s braininess. “Pleasure Seekers” is a busy, kinetic collection of quasi-primitive line-drawing gestures and flamboyantly flung colors, while loosely suggested eyeballs creep into the picture in “Always Peekers.”

“Contained Chaotic Conundrum” involves a series of eight rectangular pieces, each neatly bisected into triangles but whose geometric caging contrasts with the friendly chaos of color and free-hand abstraction. Facing this piece on the opposite wall is the much more restrained “Flatlined and Floundering: Mimicking Reservation,” with flat, monochromatic color panels looking positively staid compared to the frenzied bombast across the gallery.

Whether the artist’s intended synthesis of all these combating elements is achieved is open to question. But throughout the show, points of contrast and opposition create an amiable buzz. And that is enough. Hammer is a new addition to the Ojai art community worth keeping an eye on.

DETAILS

Mike Hammer, “No Things,” G. Childress Gallery, 319 E. El Roblar in Ojai. Hours: Mon.-Sat., 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; 640-1387.

* Josef Woodard, who writes about art and music, can be reached by e-mail at joeinfo@aol.com.