Three and a half stars

Marsh Project Gallery, Herron School of Art & Design

Tactile investigations of materials and processes prevail in Material Presence, an exhibition straddling traditional boundaries of painting, sculpture and installation art. Featured are seven emerging artists playing with color, abstraction and physicality of form: Scott Grow (also the curator), Joseph McSpadden, Danielle Riede, Eric Sall, Christian Tedeschi and Wendy White, all from the U.S., and Michael Just of Düsseldorf, Germany. Interpretation is found in the artworks themselves — no labels or lists of titles, artists or statements could be found. We are reminded that paint is composed of binders in two wall works made of long, hardened paint hanging from clear dowels like pulled taffy. Freestanding and encased in a caramel colored resin pour sits a tripod with attached camera and lenses. This looks like my old Pentax K-1000 petrified perpetually after being surpassed by some digital model. The effect is reminiscent of solidified abstract pours by Lynda Benglis. In fact, all the works hearken back to the mid-1960s to early ’70s when artists like Benglis, Eva Hesse and Bruce Nauman gained notoriety. Then and now there was a need to viscerally experience the immediate, tangible presence of materials. Through Sept. 29; 317-278-9418.