Hal Bromm Gallery presents a two part group exhibition, _Anti – Anti / Non-Non.

“Anti-Anti / Non-Non” is inspired by Ad Reinhardt’s playful poem “On Negation” which explores how one can define the inconceivable through a series of subtractions, ultimately reducing what [it] is through what [it] is NOT. Fifty-some years after Ad Reinhardt made the “last paintings” artists find themselves in an age of pluralism where anything goes. This two-part exhibition explores the work of contemporary artists who re-shape our vision of what art is and can become.

Part one of the exhibition, “Anti-Anti”, features artists making work within a formalist framework based on grid, pattern or repetition. Whether they appear as visual traps, social critique or musings on the natural world, the works in this show reveal the ageless power of pattern. Douglas Melini’s mind-bending pattern paintings fold and expand in a kaleidoscope of bilateral symmetry; Stacy Fisher uses pattern to tame her amorphous, brightly colored sculptures, and Jack Featherly drizzles and blends ribbons of enamel into a loose, spontaneous grid. Works by Joshua Abelow, Gianna Commito, Jack Featherly, Stacy Fisher, Jaime Gecker, Matthew Lusk, Douglas Melini, Bryan Osburn, Sarah Shirley, Ellen Sayers and Keith J. Varadi are included.

The second part of the exhibition, “Non-Non”, presents artists whose work appears carefree and exploratory, more concerned with material innovation than control. The artists force us to contend with the material application and presentation of their work. Artists will include Inna Babeava, Benjamin Beaudoin, James Hyde, JR Larson, Jim Lee, Jeffrey Scott Mathews, Saira McLaren and Tracy Thomason. Details to be announced

Although the outward appearances of works in each show are visibly different – and delivered by a range of motivations – there is a binding force connecting the artists. “Anti-Anti” and “Non-Non” present work that is anti-descriptive, anti-heroic, non-schematic, non-sense and anti-craft; not easily read, non-abrasive and non-non-abrasive.