The tops of things

Laura Kivela, whose exhibition Looking Around is currently on view at Woodburn & Westcott Gallery, reminds us that academic painters can be just as spontaneous as those who are not university trained. On the other hand, Robert Eagerton, currently showing at Ruschman Gallery — and a more entrenched academic as a professor of painting at Herron School of Art — reveals the other side of academic-trained painting: a refined sensibility that adheres to structured aesthetic ideals while working to allow one’s own voice to emerge.

‘Ruckle Street’ by Laura Kivela, who has an exhibit up at Woodburn & Westcott Gallery

Within this, as is often the case with visual artists (or artists of any kind, for that matter), both Kivela and Eagerton would appear to have a fixation, a visual fascination with a certain kind of imagery that they are working with and through in their selected media.

Kivela has a propensity for the tops of things: Her skies are big, bearing down on slivers of cityscapes in cities such as Indianapolis, Brookline, Mass., and even ones in Europe. Her style overwhelms any obvious sense of individual place, but this doesn’t have to be problematic. Kivela’s use of slightly tempered pastels and the occasional brighter tone give a pleasant homogeneity to her work so that it becomes “variations on a theme.” Her primary image, though, is a lovely one, so we can enjoy the twists and turns of her brush that are sometimes subtle, sometimes overt.

Kivela works in oils, watercolors and egg tempera, also offering a series of monotypes — with the same big sky hovering over dusty urbanscapes. The artist has spent a great deal of time in Europe; this, perhaps, is why I detect occasional snippets of fauvism, cubism and impressionism. Kivela, though, attributes her influences otherwise: “Atari games and Sesame Street trained me to view my surroundings in terms of geometry,” she writes.

Having seen Eagerton’s work at various stages over the years, I have the opportunity here to look for subtle differences and departures. In this case, Eagerton’s exhibition Natural Acts, mostly large-scale works, incorporate his familiar approach in which image sections are split and the borders between them adorned with repeated imagery.

Symbolically, Eagerton continues to reveal a concern for the environment, evidenced by images of leaves, birds and fish, sometimes stylized and imposed over abstracted backgrounds. But there’s a fluidity here that I don’t recall in previous Eagerton “worked” canvases; the easy flow of abstraction is a welcome departure. Two paintings in particular speak to an unfamiliar brightness: “Memory” and “Cycle” have the same sectioned approach, but there’s a liveliness to the abstraction, with large pools of red-orange and blue-green that lure the viewer almost hypnotically.

Kivela’s sensibility is less refined, more spontaneous. Eagerton’s style is highly structured but an ethereal voice is present. Eagerton’s aesthetic pools are deep places of contemplation; Kivela’s are lighter, even possessing a visual mirth. Both are evocative of soulful places.

Laura Kivela’s Looking Around is on view at Woodburn & Westcott Contemporary Fine Art, 1043 Virginia Ave., Suite 5, 916-6062, through Jan. 3, 2004. Robert Eagerton’s Natural Acts is on view at Ruschman Art Gallery, 948 N. Alabama St., 634-3114, through Jan. 17.