Through a Glass Starkly

The AU Museum presents abstracted photographs by Connie Imboden, abstract paintings by Mira Hecht and Pegan Brooke, and Cubist-influenced prints by Joseph Holston, whose work is also on exhibit at Amy

Connie Imboden, Untitled (06-08-16-429) (American University Museum)

FREEZING MOMENTS FROM SOME SORT OF MODERN DANCE, the photographs in "Endless Transformations: The Alchemy of Connie Imboden" depict the human body in poses that appear both torturous and liberated, intensely physical yet equally psychological. Carefully planned but ultimately intuitive, the Baltimore artist's pictures are unprecedented, while evoking the meaty, chiaroscuro styles of such painters as Goya, El Greco, and Francis Bacon.

The American University Museum exhibition, which includes many gifts to its collection, begins with Imboden's 1970s self-portraits and studies of wood grain. Some of these feature darkroom manipulation to achieve such effects as splitting, fracturing, or twinning the image. The fragmented self-representations hint at Imboden's alienation as a gay woman, albeit one with the self-assurance of someone who found her calling early. While still in high school, she began studying photography at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she later taught.

As her style developed, Imboden abandoned such darkroom maneuvers. And after switching from film to digital photography, circa 2008, the artist declined to alter her pictures by means of computer compositing. The photos's powerful strangeness comes entirely from their poses, lighting, and uncanny use of reflections, whether in mirrors or water.

Curated by Kristen Hileman, this selection features shadowy photos in black-and-white or muted colors, although a few of the more recent ones have vivid red accents. While the subjects are mostly nude, faces are occasionally obscured by masks or transparent plastic shields. (The latter joined the artist's props because of Covid.) Sometimes mannequins interact with humans, introducing another way to portray doubling and mirroring. But dummies can't disclose their inner structures in the manner of naked people, who flex or contort their bodies to reveal the bones and sinews just under the skin.

Such poses, and the photos's dark and bloody color schemes, suggest the art of the Catholic Reformation, which gloried in the physical suffering of Jesus and the martyrs. Yet Imboden's stated influences include Jung and Nietzsche as well as Goya, so perhaps her interest is not in mortifying the flesh but transcending it. The near-visible skeletons and musculature of her models function as road maps to the human interior, a place beyond as well as beneath the body. In the twisted flesh, often distorted beyond recognizability, Imboden might catch a glimpse of the soul.

Mira Hecht, “Gratitude” (Courtesy of Addison Ripley Fine Art; photo by Brandon Webster)

SINGLE-COLOR CIRCLES AND OVALS OVERLAP to yield diamond-like facets in the paintings of Mira Hecht, whose "in the center thereof rose a fountain" is also at the AU Museum. The Washington artist's pictures are paired with those of California's Pegan Brooke, whose "FLUX II: Light on Water" shares Hecht's interest in shifting patterns of illumination. Both shows were curated by AU Museum Director Jack Rasmussen.

Hecht's pictures bear a passing resemblance to those of the mid-20th-century D.C. colorists. But where those precursors used acrylic, she paints in oil. And while their images often relied on loosely applied or even poured paint, Hecht's gestures are precise. Their fragility derives mostly from the pastel colors, which appear soft and airy even when they gain density from being overlaid multiple times.

There are various formats among these works, some of which incorporate pencil lines and brighter hues. The most striking paintings, however, are gentle and partly washed out, as if temporarily bleached by sunlight. Hecht is a color field painter whose most essential hue is white.

Brooke's paintings are inspired specifically by landscapes, notably the phenomenon mentioned in her show's title. Yet her depiction of water involves the barest hint of blue. Brooke's oils are executed primarily in black and silvery gray, with occasional copper tones. Typically, the vertical compositions move from light to dark, or dark to light, in ways that distill sky, sea, and horizons to gradated washes. Somewhere within the transition, though, is a soft-edged band of exceptional luminosity. The water is merely suggested, but the light is palpable.

OVER HIS LONG CAREER, JOSEPH HOLSTON HAS WORKED in many styles and media. But he's returned often to jazz musicians, the theme of "Call and Response," his AU Museum show. Most often, he shows them at work, and at play, merging with the sounds they make. In these prints and paintings, the riffs are represented by curved-edge blocks of Cubist-style color, often pitting blues and purples against reds and oranges. The heads are usually black circles, suggesting notes from a musical score come to life atop a swinging body.

Holston was born 80 years ago in a rural, racially segregated area of what is now an upscale Maryland suburb. His images are archetypal, yet rooted in local experience. Among his most recent works is a painting titled "Jazz at Takoma Station," named for a club in northwest D.C.

The show includes a few more realistic works, although even they have fanciful elements. A 1990 screenprint, "Jazz," is dominated by a crossways golden saxophone, and the man who holds it is surrounded by clippings about the Black experience. The musician emerges from his culture, yet remains embedded in it.

Joseph Holston, “African Mask” (Courtesy of Amy Kaslow Gallery)

THE VIEW OF HOLSTON'S CAREER WIDENS SUBSTANTIALLY in Amy Kaslow Gallery's survey, "Black Lives, A Retrospective." It includes many additional prints of stylized jazz musicians, but also work that's either more abstracted or more realistic than the musical numbers at the AU Museum. Skill, not a specific style, is the unifying factor.

Although most of the pictures are expressionist and often based on geometric forms, there are two photo-derived paintings that depict African Americans in impoverished circumstances, yet illuminated by golden light. "Miz Emily" has a near-Biblical feel, while "Black Boy" poignantly calls attention to its subject's mismatched shoes.

All the prints and paintings are representational, but Holston's modes range widely. His Cubist-influenced still lifes are aggressively one-dimensional yet fractured into multiple planes that represent theoretical depth. There's a hint of Futurism in "Two Nudes," whose overlapping bodies suggest the same person at different moments. The orange field of "African Mask," a boldly colored etching, seems to embody the life, or lives, behind the flat surface. As in his jazz pictures, Holston uses color and shape to potently suggest sound and motion.

Endless Transformations: The Alchemy of Connie Imboden

Mira Hecht: in the center thereof rose a fountain

Pegan Brooke: FLUX II: Light on Water

Joseph Holston: Call and Response

Through Dec. 8 at the American University Museum, Katzen Arts Center, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW. american.edu/cas/museum

Joseph Holston: Black Lives, A Retrospective

Through Feb. 16 at Amy Kaslow Gallery, 7920 Norfolk Ave., Bethesda. amykaslowgallery.com.