Post Gallery Art Review: Josh Sperling’s transformative work, on view at the West End and Fall Creek Gimme! An assessment by Ed Marion

11 Lefts, by Josh Sperling. On view at the West End Gimme! Photo by John Criscitello

324 Squares, by Josh Sperling. On view at the West End Gimme! Photo by John Criscitello.

Cradle of Creativity, By Ed Marion, Post Art Critic

One could be excused from walking into gimme! coffee shops this month and thinking they were in a groovy time warp. On the walls of each of these art-loving gathering spaces, the colorful wall paintings of Josh Sperling are reminiscent of huge Frank Stella pieces from the 1960’s. At Cayuga Street, colorful lego-like triangles beckon you from the street while over on State Street, anyone walking into the newly expanded gimme!’s side room will be met by massive red and blue blocks that simply cannot be ignored.

Like many creatives, designer, sculptor & painter, Josh Sperling, makes Ithaca his home. Josh has been hard at work at making delightful art in Ithaca for over 2 years. I first ran into his work at the gimme! espresso shop in Trumansburg about a year ago. It was there that I first encountered one of his seminal pieces, blockstar. It’s easy to describe blockstar, but words alone don’t give it full justice. You have to come see it. Imagine a 5′ vertical piece with top rows of blocks and bottom rows of stars. In between those rows, dozens of rows transform the blocks into stars, both seamlessly and beautifully.

Josh’s drawings and prints all have a common theme of transformation. They’re like those word puzzles you may have encountered in grade school. You start with one word, change a single letter in it’s next iteration to create a new word, and continue with the process until you’ve reached a totally new word. That, to me, is what a Josh Sperling work looks like, only nicer, and with great use of negative space.

In talking with Josh, I learned that transformation is a big part of his work. Josh often starts with an image in his mind, and takes that image to his drawing desk or computer where plays with, and refines the image, often transforming it only slightly to create progressions and dispersions of similar images. Often, the prior image works as a springboard for his next work, so that the slightest turn of a circle or square might be the catalyst for a whole new series of work. For Josh, it’s the image and his concepts that drive the final product.

Josh puts his work somewhere between the shoulders of Stella and Vasarely, a progenitor of op-art (or optical art), and it’s easy to see why. Josh’s two-dimensional transformations often have a sculptural quality that lend themselves to optical illusion.

With his large and colorful 7.5′ x 7.5′ wall paintings on display at gimme! State Street, Josh has taken his core subject of transformation to new heights. While there are many beautiful pieces of art made in Ithaca daily, it’s nice to encounter one (or 2 or 4) that grab your attention and don’t let you go. Both 324 squares and 11 lefts fit that bill. The former is a series of vibrating blue squares and circles which seem to dance within and next to each other, while 11 lefts takes your eye into a series of 11 left turns around and within a large red square that can be both dizzying and entertaining.

In addition to these large pieces which could easily find themselves in galleries or lofts in Chelsea or Philly, Josh has made some smaller pieces and prints so that everyone has an entry point to collect and enjoy his work.

Josh Sperling’s double exhibition of works and paintings will run contemporaneously for the month of March at the gimme! espresso shops on State and Cayuga Streets in downtown Ithaca.

Ed Marion is a painter of portraits, cityscapes and contemporary still life. His original oil & acrylic paintings can be found atwww.edmarion.com

Tagged as: Art, Gimme!, Josh Sperling