Smith, Double and Schmidt at Rosenfeld Gallery

Can three artists with widely divergent approaches to art meet and mingle harmoniously in one gallery exhibition? Yes, if they are Todd Double, Charles Schmidt and Rita Siemienski Smith. Each one enhances the other.

Nobody should feel limited to living with only figurative art or solely abstract paintings and ignoring three-dimensional objects. Good art always works, as every art collector knows.

Todd Double is an artist for today and tomorrow: respecting the environment, preserving natural resources and inviting the viewer to be pro-active in the creation of art. Double makes three-dimensional pieces from recycled found materials like wire, plastic sheeting and motors from rusted fans or other outmoded objects. He even makes his own papers from discarded cigarettes and other such debris.

After studying painting at Penn State and sculpture in the graduate program of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Double taught himself electronics and computer programming. He uses these diverse skills in his sculpture; then the individual viewer brings them to life.

Small lights in the sculpture change color when someone looks closely. Or, as in Cyclone, a sensor captures the motion as the viewer approaches the freestanding, eight-foot-high wire construction, causing the suspended wire to spin elliptically within the framework. When you peer into the lens of Embodied Ghost, a sensor triggers a small bug light, setting off vibrations and visual variations. Tapper, Double's participatory wire and wood construction, echoes the sound of boots on wood.

Distant landscapes

Double's sculpture employs natural elements with a technological twist. It stands on its own merit but it also complements Rita Siemienski Smith's abstract but accessible paintings in the same gallery. Her medium-size acrylics on canvas and paper seem to capture a view of a distant landscape but nothing is defined.

Siemienski Smith's palette describes seasonal changes with complex shading and reflected luminosity. Her brush strokes echo the motion of air on natural forms.

My favorite was Round Up (48 x 48 inches, acrylic on canvas). Here your eye begins with the curvilinear shadow at the lower right and progresses up and center left, basking in a warm glow of natural light with a gentle, rhythmic movement. Like a favorite view from a vacation spot or a cherished memory, Siemienski Smith's images seem familiar and welcoming, never boring and always revealing new elements.

Schmidt's light and shadow

Charles Schmidt's masterful still life oil paintings of man- made and natural forms are prime examples of how they should be painted— which is appropriate for a retired faculty member at Temple University's Tyler School of Art. Infinite Regression and Six Degrees of Separation convey Schmidt's mastery of this form: light and shadows define the objects, and a close examination of each painting reveals the complex colors and brush strokes employed for visual congruity.

Almost every painting by Schmidt felt "just right" to me, but my favorite was About the Horse, with an image of a cast of a horse's head from the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum (still to be returned to Greece for reuniting with the other Parthenon marbles in the new museum on the Acropolis). The horse's head is a background image, but the painting is so beautifully defined with subtle nuances of light and shadows that I just wanted to immerse myself in the sheer beauty of Schmidt's technique.

Visit this exhibition to observe the successful cross-fertilization of three variant expressions in art. Although they work separately, in tandem the three artists enhance each other, in effect affirming the ultimate unity of individual expression.