A bold and silent show, Alpha & is a captivating group exhibition of individual works presented in conversation with one another. Invited in with a proposed “exploration of the body and the body in time,” the first impression of this exhibition is somewhat unexpected in its subtle, nuanced, and overall magical atmosphere.

A perusal of the gallery reveals that, although the works selected are distinctly diverse, they are somehow mysteriously connected. Each participates in a shared, powerful, almost indescribable ethos, one that evokes more questions than answers, prompting the viewer to slow down and inspect the mystique of these pieces as if artifacts from an obscure, larger narrative.

There is a deliberate, decisive physicality throughout the show, each object referencing a life or activity that emerged and imprinted itself. Portugese artist Ana Cordoso’s "painting" is a controlled eruption within an abstract, minimalist structure. She takes a familiar reference, that of high modernism, and reinvents it through grounds made from stretched, sewn together fabric (silk, cotton, polyester) triumphantly transforming a cold, austere format, into something vibrating, referencing the vernacular through satin-like fabrics, bright colors, and the visible texture of the painted surface.

A somber pair, Stacy Lynn Waddell’s burnt portrait on paper, and Anya Gallaccio’s Sunset Tree (bronzed tree limb) read as expressions of mortality, attempts to capture a life that is already gone. Waddell’s portrait of a woman, titled with the monogram APM, and rendered with the use of scorch marks, appears to reference a dated photograph, implying personal connection and loss. Cast directly from life, and intact with pinecones, Gallaccio’s bronze tree limb embalms the object in an eternal moment in time--a moment just after its death. Unlike other examples of Gallacio's work which incorporate live elements, every part of the tree is bronze, however you still may feel compelled to reach down and grab a pinecone.

Quite unassuming, yet simultaneously eerie, Clare Stephenson’s Bandaged Heads are simple ovals containing white strips of wood layered horizontally across like strips of bandage. Small cracks are left in between the strips, hinting at the potential of something underneath. These objects contain just enough information to reference the body, yet are abstract enough to be clearly something not human. Tia Pulitzer’s Timeless vs. Ageless hands, are, like Gallacio’s tree, truncated limbs, but rather than being cast from life, they have an appearance of the unnatural, “make-believe” world, recalling porcelain white amputated hands of an almost life-size doll whose delicate fingers are creased and slightly contorted in unnatural ways.

Striking in their powerful assertion, visceral, violent actions are frozen in time in Kirstine Roepstroff's wall-hanging Winter Mute Revolt, and Yasue Maetake's  Model for the Blacksmithin, where blanched stillness acts in opposition to expressions of frenetic energy. Maetake's sculpture, appearing as ritualistic object constructed from animal bones and other organic matter which, coated and blanched, climb up to an apex--a victorious fan of butchers knives.

Finally, there is the project by performance artist Maria Petschnig, Born to Perform. A 20 minute video projected in the gallery's cellar-like basement. Weaving personal home movies from the artist's childhood together with recent mildly violent sexually explicit shots of the artist's body (relating to her current performance practice). This work, isolated from the rest of the show, feels consciously less connected. It is the only time-based work, and is also the most direct and literal documentation of the human form.  After descending the precarious stairs to the low, dim room, you may get the impression this video lives as the exhibition's subconscious. A live performance by Petschnig in the gallery will supplement this project  on February 11.

Images: Alpha & installation view  (Yasue Maetake and Kirstine Roepstorff); Ana Cardoso, Wing 3 After Dot Dot Dot cover High Modernists (2009), acrylic on sewed fabrics (linen, cotton, silk and polyester); Clare Stephenson, Bandaged Head 3 (2007), painted wood on plywood. Courtesy On Stellar Rays Gallery.