Roger Vail and Robin Hill

JayJay gallery in Sacramento will be featuring the work of two artists who also teach at nearby colleges: Roger Vail, photographer and professor at California State University, Sacramento, and Robin Hill, painter and professor of art at University of California, Davis.

Vail cites both Edward Hopper and Dan Flavin as influences and his high-gloss, high-intensity photographs rewind these two inspirational strands. Particularly attracted to the glow of neon at night, Vail has focused his lens on the myriad ways neon is reflected off of multiple signs and onto all sorts of surprising surfaces to create brilliant color arrays. Limousine Reflecting, Las Vegas, presents an incredible curved linear light and dark pattern reflected onto the surface of a car, making it look almost zebra-like. Roof Exhaust Duct Reflection is so awash with color that this unlikely surface begins to transmute, and resembles something like a chapel window. Sidewalk Reflection captures the blue, pink and yellow neon light from some overhanging sign in a humble, small patch of water on the sidewalk. Open Late is the piece in which the Hopper and Flavin influences most specifically converge: Green neon surrounds the window of the empty diner, as you become more acutely aware that all of these city scenes are totally devoid of human presence.

Hill’s work also carries a sense of suspension, looking towards possibility rather than hoping for resolution. Noticing what is available, Hill attempts to build meaning through repetition, juxtaposition and relationship. Small things become bigger via compilation, function shifts by way of changes in context, and sequencing creates a sense of both familiarity and disorientation, designed to invite changes in perception for the viewer. Often working with recycled, previously discarded items, Hill constructs various towers, standing and wall-mounted grids, and installations filled with mysterious white balls decorated with red lines. A series of paintings to be included in this exhibition, appropriately titled Red Line series, somehow both connects and anchors the balls, which might be seen on the studio floor, or piled up in experimental decanters. The wild, swirling red lines on balls, inside vases, and even on canvas, look very similar to the kind of lines one sees on fancy cakes, and suggest perhaps the presence of some very tiny, playful dancing elves, who have dipped their little feet into red, sticky sugar.

Although the works of Hill and Vail do not physically resemble each other, both are involved with shifts in perception, changes in scale and the reshuffling of familiar things in inventive ways. Through their work, ordinary becomes elegant, and whole worlds previously invisible come to light.

Roger Vail: New Photography and Robin Hill: New Paintings will be on view through June 27 at JayJay, 5520 Elvas Ave., Sacramento.