By Mary Voelz Chandler
Rocky Mountain News

May 13, 2005

Human fascination with the human form is as old as the first hominid to peer out of the cave. The ability to reproduce that figure, abstract it and twist it into an actor in a drama on canvas or paper is the subject of spring shows at two area galleries.  

• Meanwhile, through May 20, work related to the human form also fills Sandy Carson Gallery, though it is a bit of a mixed bag in terms of style and intent.

The more successful aspects of the show are work by Mary Connelly, Barbara Shark, Graham Nickson and Madeleine Dodge.

Connelly presents intimate scenes that involve mute, occasionally hidden participants, paintings that are more emotionally large-scale still lifes than figure studies. Shark, who shows at Carson and at the co-op Spark Gallery, is represented by a few charcoal and pastel-on-paper pieces that depict friends captured in relaxed social moments, fleshed out by 16 small drawings in which Shark portrays herself acting out steps in a tai chi movement called "Catch the Sparrow's Tail." Shark captures maximum momentum in minimum lines. That is the reverse of Nickson's work, which includes scenes of people taking off garments to prepare for a swim; Nickson is adept at using charcoal to shade in musculature and curve. And Dodge continues her work painting on metal, in this instance figures set against the overlay of a blue grid and featuring occasionally sanded or smoothed spots.

Though John Giarrizzo's pencil- and-paper drawings act out his titles - such as Jump, Suspend and In Stride - as interpreted through the human body, Lui Ferreyra's cubist approach loses the figure beyond translation into abstracted forms. And Gerard Huber's flat airbrushed paintings may succeed in their aim to equate earthbound beings with classical sculpture, but lean to exaggerated veining and staginess that puts content at the service of technique.

The gallery is at 760 Santa Fe Drive; information: 303-573-8585, or www .sandycarsongallery.com.  

Chandlerm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2677.