As I travel to different exhibits around the city, as in life, I take note of the places I want to visit more than once.  I sit with the pull to the work and try and figure out why am I so entranced by the art.  Barbara Shark's show "Stills" at Spark Gallery is one of those exhibits.  I attended the night of the opening and have been back three times to see what I might have missed in experiencing the pieces.

The pieces are all large and when I first saw the postcard I thought the work was over sized photographs.  When I arrived and looked at the work, the art is carefully created oil paintings in shades of black, white and gray that only look like photographs.  The work has such a feel of realism that you want to find a way to jump into the painting and join in on the activity.

My favorite of the exhibit is "On the Ferry".  Barbara's other paintings in the exhibit are sequence paintings.  They follow someone through an activity and you feel like you can join right in, especially with the paintings following a woman dong T'ai Chi. 

I look forward to see Barbara's work in the future and cant' wait to jump into the realm of her new work.

Astonished...
Greg