“Intimate
Apparel” is an exploration of texture, materials and
surface –– integrated with what she terms “the biography
beneath the surface.” The result is work that at first view
is complete and defined. But, this look should not be so hasty.
A second glance produces a rebound not so definitive. And in ensuing
views, the work’s appeal becomes more ambiguous and mysterious.
The large canvases evoke what may be called an “exquisite”
feeling, a first assessing so to speak. Further discovery awaits
in the stained silk organza, embodying the sensual and formal contradictions
of the East. Further examination brings forth Ms. Reingold’s
apt underworld depicted in marred and pocked marks and punctured
here and there with thread and stitching. Her “biography” now encroaches upon our consciousness, or perhaps lurks just beneath
a reality, as she may well intend it to do.
The painstakingly-executed stained paper pieces, on heavy French
rag weave, are another facet of the same ambitious quest. Their
execution is surprisingly dimensional throughout the thick masses
intertwined with subtle twisting skeins and cosmic splatters. “Layers,
and the illusion of layers, are integral to surface, for illusion
is always the life beneath the surface,” Ms. Reingold explains.
The stain paintings truly clarify a mystical experience, and expertly
capture it in a formal hardwood boundary.
Finally, a group of small stained paintings and assemblages are
framed in what one critic called “strange and haunting little
boxes” that “shrink the sacred down to human scale.” Either presented on black steel stands, or fastened at right angle
to the wall, the boxes are miniatures, either reliefs or stained
paper, each its own complete chapter in the work of the whole.
The work is, indeed, intimate as the title indicates, sometimes
so much so that its underlying aesthetic takes its time in coming.
It’s well worth the wait.
