In the center of the white field is a day-glow yellow cross made of the same fabric. Viewers cannot walk on the fabric, thus are forced to view it from the perimeter. In a separate gallery Semmes contextualizes the installation piece with photographs of bodies wrapped in colorful fabrics, as well as four small video monitors that display a work entitled Sitting, Flapping, Walking, Swimming. In it a female figure adorned with bright colors waves long lengths of fabric through a forest as well as in the water. Some, with their layers of encryptic-like symbols, appear to contain a hidden message.
Resemblances end here, at the superficial.
In the former, target-like concentric circles appear to vibrate against each other, producing an energy like that associated with physical activity. The latter's horizontally-oriented oval, reminiscent of an egg or a still pool of water, elicits a sense of serenity. In Developing the Scene Lou Jacobs Jr., Basil Langton and Alan Shaffer help us visualize three successive creative eras of local art history via these documentary photographs of the artists who shape it. The unique immigration experience of American Latinos, as personified by selected Latino artists, is the subject of El Norte . The ceramics of Michael and Magdalena Frimkess provide a jolting combination of traditional South American form and iconography with lowbrow images from American popular culture.