Chimera at H & F Fine Arts
H & F Fine Arts is a relatively new art gallery, only having opened this past April, and thus far featuring a few community group shows. With Chimera, the exhibit that opened last weekend, H & F embarks into more streamlined showcasings of particular artists. If you saw the small preview of A. B. Miner’s work at Flashpoint last fall, you'll know the short trek to the Mount Rainer located gallery for the full effect is well worth it.
Chimera features the last two years of work by A.B. Miner, a D.C. artist who received his MFA from Queens College, CUNY in 2000. Miner's most recent work is boldly revealing and personal, documenting his gender transformation, including the bodily and emotional changes undergone.
Many of the pieces focus on the changing landscape of his body as it underwent this physical shift. Nine exhibited artworks study the loss of female breasts and growth of body hair during Miner’s gender transition. Taken individually and without labels, one may not notice the context of the work, and may simply think, as in They told me to work bigger … so there (hair growth study-thirteen weeks), that the drawing is a simple representation of a man’s stomach and body hair. However, in context, one more fully understands that this series of ink drawings serve as documentations of change. Furthermore, anyone who has been in a formal art critique can’t help but laugh out loud at the obvious reference in the title of the piece. While each of the four drawings are a mere 6” x 4”, they are matted and framed to form much larger works, each measuring approximately 24” x 36” framed.
Image of Chimera courtesy the gallery.
In the front of the gallery near the entrance are From Here to There and Going…going…gone, both painted in thick impasto, with pastel pinks and purples filling thick rectangular brush strokes. From Here to There portrays the hairy chest of a man, with thin lines scraped into the paint to create the illusion of hair. Going…going…gone, a set of three 10” x 8” paintings, portrays the transition from female breasts to a hairy male chest, with Miner shown holding the breasts up for display. The small size of these works forms a claustrophobic view of the situation, as if the artist was being squished into a tiny box simply so that the audience could catch a glimpse of these extremely personal moments.
Other works serve as intense portraits of Miner himself and others, as in the three exhibited paintings in the Queer Portrait Series, as well as the show’s title piece, Chimera (pictured). An oil painting with a background of shiny black enamel, Chimera features two contrasting self portraits. The left image, appearing more delicate, is rendered in a partial profile, with popping, attentive eyes and a wrinkled forehead. The right image portrays an elongated, contorted face, with eyes scrunched and looking slightly downward. Like many of Miner’s other oil paintings, the portraits in Chimera are painted thickly with layered, bold paint strokes, adding to the shocking, in-your-face feeling created by the squashed composition.
H & F Fine Arts rides the delicate line between multi-functional art space and high end gallery. On the back left side of the gallery is a small frame shop, which focuses on custom archival framing for original artwork. Near the framing area, H & F exhibits a smaller collection of artwork from another artist. Currently, five pieces are on view by Philadelphia folk artist Michele Foster-Lucas. Additionally, the gallery features displays holding jewelry and a delightful selection of illustrated books. All of the books are written and illustrated by husband and wife team Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr, who form Idiot Books. Ten Thousand Stories features four flappable panels with illustrations on the left side, and stories on the right; the panels can be interchanged to reveal numerous combinations of story and image. All but one of the books is intended for adults, and all are very reasonably priced around $25 each.
H & F is located in Mount Rainier, Md. beneath the studios of many artists in the new Gateway Arts District. Plans are in the works for at least two more buildings of artist studios in the area, and the Washington Glass School is right down the street. As an onlooker, it’s not so easy to tell that artists are bursting from the seams in Mount Rainier, but the Gateway Cultural Development Corporation is certainly trying to change that.
H & F Fine Arts is located at 3311 Rhode Island Avenue, Mount Rainier, Md. and is open Wednesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., Saturdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sundays 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Chimera runs through August 4.