Talk transforms personal perspectives

By Victoria Gail-White
Advertiser Art Critic

•	Personal Visions: Works by Carl Jennings, Elisabeth Knoke-Dieckvoss, Birgitta Leitner and Helene Wilder 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Fridays; through May 13 The Contemporary Museum at First Hawaiian Center 999 Bishop St. 526-0232

In four oils on canvas, Carl Jennings shares his inventive use of computer technology and digital imagery to achieve the unexpected.

In "Reverie" (32 by 30 inches), a softly focused eye and cheek are painted as the ground for a sprinkling of surrealistic blue bubblegum balls. If you get too close, one might just pop into your mouth (let me know if one does).

"Raygun Baby" (32 by 30 inches) juxtaposes an oversized blue-green mouth and nose behind a line of pink-shaded cookie-cutter patterns with a small toy ray gun in the lower left section of the painting.

Jennings is quoted in the exhibition brochure saying he hopes to "re-imagine the ordinary as extraordinary, and ultimately, to arrive at a sense of what I call an 'alien beauty.' "

Elisabeth Knoke-Dieckvoss' Pasi—n series of six oils on canvas illustrate her love of tango. A group of painted legs with flat shoes entwine with smooth legs in high-heeled shoes in "Pasi—n II: Tangorgy" (32 by 30 inches).

In "Pasi—n III: Locked In" (60 by 32 inches), two shoes are entangled in a soft cloud of grays, pinks, yellow and black textures seemingly suspended magically in the reverie of the dance.

The "Opium Pod Series" and "Pod Series" by Birgitta Leitner manipulate our view of nature. She is quoted in the brochure as saying: "The image becomes a metaphor, an expressive vehicle for death and decay and for giving and creating new life."

Her nine color-restricted seedpod paintings suggest a carved-out wooden surface straddling two worlds —Êalive yet ashen looking — in their hibernation cycle before planting.

In this series, Leitner layers oil stick, rhoplex, charcoal and ink after preparing her paper, then dips the paper into an ink bath.

The ink is both attracted and repelled by the charcoal and oil stick, transformed by that polarity.

Helene Wilder joins the eclectic conversation with her "Borrowed Landscape" series of three 48-by-60-inch oils on canvas and "The Geishas," made of metals applied inside and outside of clear cast glass, set in two double frames.

Wilder's paintings contrast the orderly figures of geisha against dark, intensely colored dusk skies. Black crows emerge from their black wigs, sit on their snowy white fingers and form black-crow clouds.

Stirring the stews of tradition, spirituality, individuality, identity and emotion, the eyes of Wilder's geishas stare out from their white, rouged faces searching for direction, while the expansive landscape of chaotic sky and mountains stretches behind their patterned kimono.

These eyes follow you as you walk by, seemingly surprised by the fact that you are there while they are trapped in the painting.