Spaced Out

The latest incarnation of Michelle Blade's art (she dips her brush into different styles, refreshingly) has a washy grandeur, a touch of innocent West Coast mysticism that echoes the sunset '70s. Languid silhouettes appear in gently psychedelic landscapes, staring out from stained-glass rainbow caves or peering from a sun-drenched tree. Her mysterious people seem to be waiting, acting as witness to a sunset or a celestial event, or, as in Untitled (Celebration), a wartime fireworks show à la Apocalypse Now. There’s also a weird posse holding torches, the sweeping arc of a comet striking Earth, and tiny archers massed under a giant, aurora borealis-addled moon. In her solo show, "The Elliptical Good-Kind,” the S.F.-based painter connects the spiritual to the earthy like William Blake, although Sigur Rós’ nubile young nudies also come to mind.
July 5-Aug. 8, 2008