Andrew Kuo Half Half

The title of Andrew Kuo’s exhibition at Green Gallery — Half Half — may seem at first a bit coy. In fact, though, it is quite accurate. After all, two halves indeed make a whole.

Gallery director John Riepenhoff walked me through the exhibition on a recent afternoon, speaking with enthusiasm as we perused the dozen or so paintings.

The works are tightly woven geometric affairs, dazzling to the eye in the way they shift space in an echo of Op-Art, but close in spirit to the sharp humor of Frank Stella or the distant reflections of digital pixelation.

Kuo is a pristine artist, even cleaner in his lines than Piet Mondrian.

Riepenhoff notes that Kuo uses painter’s tape to achieve this clarity — and his New York studio is filled with the cast-off strips. I look at the canvases in awe, as my experiences with painter’s tape led me to judge that using it to produce a sharp-edged line is as rare as unicorns.

Kuo’s attentiveness and technique are not merely exercises in nice lines, however. They form the visual structure that is equal parts diary, novel and “choose your own adventure” story.

A multifaceted life

Kuo grew up on the East Coast and spent a lot of time in New York City, where his mother taught at NYU and his father worked at the United Nations, in addition to both being writers.

Kuo’s grandfather was a Taiwanese painter and so the creative life was something well ingrained in the family.

Graphic design later became an area of study, and that evolved into printmaking and painting.

Kuo’s multifaceted life also includes writing and music, as well as social media and sports interests, especially the New York Knicks.

All of that comes back around in the linear visuals of his paintings.

Cryptic legends

Many works in Half Half are recent accomplishments — you might think you can catch a whiff of deliciously fresh paint. They can be read a number of ways — look at them as pure abstractions or intricately woven designs, but if you choose to attend to the legends inscribed at the bottom of many, their cryptic observations and questions lead us somewhere quite different.

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Andrew Kuo art

The installation Half Half: Andrew Kuo continues through Sept. 23 at Green Gallery in Milwaukee.

Consider “ADN (7/4/17),” for example. Like remembering Constructivism and Cubism through the filter of Minimalism and with the fading time of 50-plus years, diagonals of white and blue angle off to the east, giving way to vaguely chevronic arrangements of peach against that navy tone. On the bottom, purple lines hold things down like reflections in murky water. It is only after looking at the image on my computer screen that something flag-like occurred in its structure, with the repetitions of stripes. But let’s read this like the novel it is.

Kuo often includes diagrams, like maps that could be overlaid, but it is his words that really stand out. In this case, we begin with an outline or a choice: A. To dig up. / 1. Facts. / B. To forget. To uncover and pursue, or retreat and dismiss? Other epitaphs invoke “provable memories,” “holiday stories,” swimming pools, fireworks and festive foods.

The text sets the scene. The real questions, or characters, appear in the color-coded legend, aligning with the various hues in the painting.

‘THEN/NOW’

Under two headings — THE SHOW THEN / THE SHOW NOW, statements conjure all of the latent ghosts of our joy and dread of holidays and the jostled situations of our selves as we navigate social expectations and honesty.

A deep blue in THE SHOW THEN category is “Wondering why we had to actually be there,” while deep rose is “Only caring about claiming we saw/did things.” In THE SHOW NOW, experience and memory is tempered, a little softer as a pale pink is “Asking the next one to take its time getting here,” and rich violet is “Needing to see it to remember it.”

The thing with abstract art is it has no story to tell. These paintings don’t either, necessarily, but in the way that the patterns pass and dislodge each other, lines and spaces shift from one signifier of memory and feeling to another. It is like the passing of time or moods. It is hard, at any one time, to say we are exclusively one emotion or another, caught in the embrace of the present and without any hint of a past or ancillary concerns arresting our attention.

These paintings gather together jumbles and bundles, inherent to the artist who is adept at describing the underlying tensions, desires, delusions and intentions we all have through his ciphers.

There is one painting that is different from the others. In the middle of the front gallery is one smeary abstract painting. It is a storm of strokes in vivid colors similar to the other pieces, but unregimented and obfuscated. Over the top is a brush of white that hangs like a cloud, its density varied and bright. It brings a lightness to the painting, but it does not enlighten. Rather, it conceals. As with its companion pieces in the gallery, half is given, but the other half must be chosen.

On exhibit

Half Half: Andrew Kuo continues through Sept. 23 at Green Gallery, 1500 N. Farwell Ave., Milwaukee. thegreengallery.biz

Featured exhibits

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Opening reception: Thursday, Sept. 14, 5–7 p.m., with an artist talk at 6 p.m.

Through Nov. 30.

This photography exhibition by Nicole Acosta explores nature, home and culture. As she describes her practice, Acosta writes, “I use photography as a tool to preserve my personal stories and illustrate what I witness while navigating through motherhood, a womyn of color and as a Chicana.”

Richard Lorenz

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12800 N. Lake Shore Drive, Mequon

Opening reception: Thursday, Sept. 14, 6–8 p.m.

Through Oct. 13.

The Cedarburg Art Museum and CUW Art Gallery are hosting an exhibition of paintings by Richard Lorenz, a 19th-century German artist who taught in the Milwaukee community. The show, drawn from a private collection, features works that are “an excellent source for Wisconsin historical artists,” as described by Dr. Theresa Kenney, professor and art gallery curator.

2017 SumTotal Faculty Exhibition

UWM Arts Center Gallery

2400 E. Kenwood Blvd., Milwaukee

Opening reception: Friday, Sept. 15, 5–7 p.m.

Through Nov. 9.

The school year is underway and faculty members are demonstrating that those who can do, teach. Thirty-six members of the UWM Art & Design Department are participating in this biennial exhibition.

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