Carla Bengtson and David Wetzl
Artweek March 2003

Carla Bengtson's and David Wetzl's work is not tied through imagery or paint handling, but each appears to be the honest result of an individual and idiosyncratic search involving interior intuition held together by the familiar scaffolding of geometric form.

Plain Dream by Bengtson is a fairly large, oval canvas, viewed horizontally, appearing somewhat like a porthole into the interior world of the artist. Slightly off-center on the bottom right, there sits what seems to be a very tiny gray ship perched on the outer edge of the canvas. The smallness of the ship in proportion to the size of the canvas creates an inviting intimacy and the sensation that one is peering into some kind of inner vision based on, but not limited by the external world. It is the presence of the ship that suggests some connection to external reality, and creates the possibility for grounding the image in some kind of invented narrative. So, a tiny gray ship sits on the edge of a dark, murky, vast sea. Smoky gray, threatening clouds hang above. Red lights reflected in the water suggest the presence of fire -- a burning hull perhaps? Bengtson's technique is painterly and includes overlays, washes, wet into wet and scumbling, all contributing to the creation of a dream-space.

Wetzl's Past the Eye-Kant Box is the result of the dreaming of a very different sensibility. Very complicated in structure, the work leads the viewer up and down, back and around, through the overlaying of what looks like several schematized maps or drawings, with forms, lines, shapes and colors morphing in and out. The overall sensation is of having been thrown into a kind of complicated dance or weaving in which the theme is the play between geometry and organic form. The painting includes bits of recognizable imagery, such as a small, inset column-and-arch reminiscent of Moorish architecture. Also possibly present is one fairly large, dark, might-be-part-of-an-African-mask, one fairly loopy, translucent orange rubber duck.

New Work -- Carla Bengtson and David Wetzl is on view March 5 through April 19 at JAYJAY, 5520 Elvas Ave., Sacramento.