Galleries in Bloom

Part of Un beau désordre, by Robert Bourasseau, 2001

The times being what they are, you don't exactly expect to see new galleries sprouting across Austin's cultural landscape. And yet, two just did, both in the apparently fertile gallery soil west of Lamar between Fifth and Sixth. Just before Halloween, Oswald Gallery opened its doors in the Whit Hanks center, and less than two weeks later, Jean-Marc Fray opened a few blocks to the west in a small house on Walsh. On the surface, the two galleries couldn't be more different. One is in a house, the other in a strip center; one shows painting, the other photography; one is awash in warm colors, the other cool in shades of gray and black. But the two share a common heart: the exhibition of artwork that renders its subjects with such rich textures, they generate a sensual heat and excitement.

In the case of Jean-Marc Fray, the artwork is by French painter Robert Bourasseau, who renders landscapes, still lifes, and figures with dense, thick layers of paint that sit on the canvas like stucco on a wall. Bourasseau's coffee cups -- a favorite subject -- are chalky little tubs of china filled with a swirling liquid so dark and intense it might be a black hole that will suck you into it before you can do the reverse. Sometimes the cups sit alone, sometimes in a group, as on one large canvas where half a dozen rest on a white surface, as if on a bed of snow, and sometimes they share a table with food and drink of bright, almost lurid hues: pears of sunset gold, peaches with curved highlights of flame, sausage the shade of anger-flushed cheeks. These vibrant colors in Bourasseau's works are what make the canvases jump off the sienna and rust-colored walls of the intimate Fray gallery. Golden-green leaves blowing through an azure sky, scarlet tulips, blood-red wine ... the hues are too lush to be contained; they bleed across the image, creating blurred sketchy impressions of vigorous, voluptuous life. They're almost too much to be contained by the petit mansion in which they're displayed, but Jean-Marc and Cynthia Fray have created a charming new gallery in which to discover these images.

In the case of Oswald, the art is by legendary landscape photographer Ansel Adams. Getting a jump on the Adams centenary in 2002, Leya Simmons Oswald and husband Glen are displaying three dozen of Adams' most famous prints, including epic shots of Yosemite, so beloved by Adams, abstract images of nature, and the masterpiece Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico. For anyone who knows Adams' work, there are no surprises. Still, no matter how many times you've seen the images, in person they are breathtaking, for the awesome majesty of nature that Adams was somehow able to contain in 8-by-10 black-and-white prints, for their jaw-dropping clarity, and for their contrast, as strikingly dramatic as good and evil. Seeing Monolith: The Face of Half-Dome, you feel the rough rock and vast dome of sky above. You are in his world, reconnected with nature as he perceived it. Complementing the images are illuminating text pieces by Adams assistant and biographer Mary Street Alinder, who conveys in a light, personal tone not only pertinent information about the artist's life and technique but insight into his character. Oswald's monochromatic setting -- walls of dove gray, carpet of dark graphite, lighting fixtures and frames of inky black -- is elegantly in sync with the crisp and arresting black-and-white photos by Adams and the other modern photographers featured here. It also makes the room full of dazzling color prints by Christopher Burkett seem as if you've just come out of Kansas and opened the door to Oz. The feeling at Oswald is focused and elegant, encouraging many a return visit.

These new galleries are welcome additions to the scene, and we hope they're part of it for a long time. The fact that both report excellent attendance at their respective openings, accompanied by healthy sales, we take as a good sign.