"No Coast, No Sea"

As Carl Baratta put it, his exhibition with Iva Gueorguieva is a “straight-up painting show.” Indeed, the work by both artists in “No Coast, No Sea” performs within the constraints of a flat rectangular surface. From this given format, they delve into experimentations in form, content and material. At first Baratta and Gueorguieva’s only stylistic relation appears to be color. But beyond the differences of scale and media is a harmony in their explorations of figuration and abstraction.

Baratta’s weapon of choice is water-based media on paper. Inspired by a variety of sources—Persian miniatures, B-grade monsters and glitter rock stage costumes—Baratta weaves colorful, fantastic pictures and narratives that belie a sense of gloom in the work. For instance, Forgotten Hills, a panel painting of a dreamy landscape, contains a shriveling corpse. Gueorguieva is versatile with oil yet her paintings look like a mixture of acrylic, varnish, ink and watercolor. Joyous apocalyptic abstractions reveal themselves to be semirepresentational landscapes populated by characters in an array of happy and tortured situations.—EW