REPRESENTATIONAL ARTISTS yet not realists, June Linowitz, Pat Silbert, and William Tinto make pictures that are shaped by ecological or spiritual concerns, or just whimsy. All three are also linked by a small but diverting aspect of their work: Each takes a distinctive approach to framing.
Linowitz's Fred Schnider Gallery of Art show, "Elemental," comprises two evocative series of mixed-media works based on ancient notions of the elements: The Western group has four, and the Chinese five. (Both include fire, water, and earth; in place of air, the Eastern lineup has metal and wood.) All are on handmade paper mounted on canvas, and combine painting, encaustic, and photo-transferred drawings with stitched, patchwork, and gathered fabric. The Bethesda artist's depictions can be nearly photographic, but are freed from documentary realism by layered colors and diverse textures.
June Linowitz, “Planet in Peril: Earth” (Courtesy June Linowitz)
The four-picture set, from 2022, is titled "Planet in Peril" and illustrates disasters or their aftermath. "Water" is a flooded suburban neighborhood, "Earth" a drought-cracked plain, "Fire" a burning forest, and "Air" the chaotic consequences of a tornado or hurricane. The Chinese-inspired quintet, made in 2024, is looser and gentler, and offers five seasonal variations on the same scene. The textile elements of the newer works are more evident, with conspicuously sewn seams and collaged pieces.
The fabric frames around the "Planet and Peril" artworks both mark their edges and, intriguingly, extend the pictures beyond their literal boundaries. The compositions and color schemes continue onto the cotton, which is usually bunched into a soft-edged approximation of a traditional wooden or metal frame. "Water" stretches even further, with blue- and green-painted ribbons that hang from the bottom as if overflowing the picture. The image -- and its implications -- strains toward the limits of human awareness.
Pat Silbert, Requiem for Kirkland’s Warbler (Courtesy Pat Silbert)
NATURE IS NOT IN CRISIS in Pat Silbert's meditative acrylic-on-paper paintings, many of which depict the Potomac River and its avian inhabitants. "Something Opens Our Wings" is the title of the Washington-area artist's Waverly Street Gallery show, and winged creatures feature in many of the pictures. With colors that muted and mottled, aquatic or earthy, Silbert portrays ephemeral moments that usually center on water, trees, flowers, or birds.
The central compositions are straightforward, but complicated by pictorial insets, internal borders, and traces of gold leaf. The picture's frames are not physical but painted, and are positioned both around and within the main image. While natural phenomena are often the sources of the secondary images -- a feather, a pair of bobbing geese -- Silbert sometimes inserts gold-flecked images of Buddhist icons. These are inspired by the thousands of identical images of the Buddha in rooms in Tibetan-style monasteries in Ladakh, India.
Silbert's interest in spirituality gives resonance to such simple scenes as a downward view of a path through the woods. The painting could depict a pleasant walk, or a course toward full immersion in nature. Similarly, the artist's lone trees usually stand next to bodies of water, casting reflections that are lengthier than their actual heights. The shadow is more imposing than the object that casts it, or perhaps even more real. Silbert's paintings both exalt nature and seek something beyond it
William Tinto, “Window with Vase” (Courtesy William Tinto)
OF THE THREE ARTISTS, William Tinto is the most drawn to the mundane, and yet there's a fantastical element to many of his acrylic paintings. The Arlingtonian's Arts Club of Washington show takes a droll second look at everyday stuff, influenced by 1960s pop art -- especially Roy Lichtenstein -- as well as the absurdities of American consumer culture.
Fruits and vegetables are trafficked into unexpected situations in Tinto's paintings: In "Okra Truck," the title vehicle carries a single gargantuan okra, while "Ominous Pears" is a still life whose subject is endangered by the tire of a nearby truck that may or may not be in motion. Turning to art history, the artist transforms the 30,000-year-old Venus of Willendorf into a green-striped melon, plumping on a vine.
Most of the show's frames are conventional, but "TV Cowboy" demonstrates that Tinto is as playful a woodworker as he is a painter. This rendering of a mid-20th-century singing cowboy -- in black-and-white, of course -- is contained by a 3D border in the shape of a vintage TV set. Subtler but just as amusing is "Window and Flower," a view from a high-rise whose white wooden frame is also a window frame. In Tinto's puckish artworks, the visual wit can be at the center, off to one side, or around the edges.
June Linowitz: Elemental
Through Oct. 27 at Fred Schnider Gallery of Art, 888 N. Quincy St., Arlington. fredschnidergalleryofart.com. 301-852-8042.
Pat Silbert: Something Opens Our Wings
Through Oct. 26 at Waverly Street Gallery, 4600 East-West Highway, Bethesda. waverlystreetgallery.com. 301-951-9441.
William Tinto
Through Oct. 25 at the Arts Club of Washington, 2017 I St. NW. artsclubofwashington.org. 202-331-7282.