Tranquil trialogue

Three artists quietly converse at (SCENE) Metrospace

Walk into the latest art exhibit at East Lansing’s (SCENE) Metrospace,  “Things that Stay,” and feel your blood pressure go down by about 20 points.

Last week, curator Laurén Gerig was orchestrating the work of three Michigan artists, balancing their affinities and differences to create an absorbing, tranquil trialogue.

It’s a quiet show, but it’s no sleeper. Each artist, taken alone, has plenty to say.

Here there are rooms within rooms, beginning with the bold, colorful interiors of Grand Rapids painter Michael Pfleghaar. Straddling the line between realistic painting and graphic art, Pfleghaar’s canvases, splashed with spiky houseplants and crisp modern furniture, catch the eye as soon as you walk in.

A clue to Pfleghaar’s message, and that of the entire exhibit, is an abandoned phone on a table. As if the hint weren’t enough, the painting is called “Phone Down Look Around.”

Pfleghaar said the exhibit is about “stillness, taking time to look at the ordinary, and that’s what I use as my subjects — the things around me.”

“It’s a beautiful meditation on the everyday,” Gerig said. “We’re seeing corners of rooms, pots, towels, platters, things we know.”

The trialogue bounces back and forth from every corner of the exhibit. A selection of vases by Lansing-based ceramic artist Debbie Carlos are positioned in front of Pfleghaar’s interiors, almost absorbing one artist’s work into another’s.

“It’s almost like you pulled Debbie’s work out of the paintings,” Gerig said.

Carlos started taking ceramics classes 10 years ago, not as an academic discipline but informally at the Hannah Community Center and Reach Studio Art Center in Lansing. She had already worked for a decade as a professional photographer.

“I wanted to work with my hands and make objects I could use.” Carlos said.

All of Carlos’s creations are functional, at least in theory, from rippled and stippled plates to jagged jewelry holders that spike upward like stalagmites in a cave.

Raised as a Buddhist, she calls herself a “minimalist in general.”

“I just like simplicity. I stick to white or more muted colors, and often just leave my pieces unglazed,” she said. “Let the thing be the thing. I just love the color of the clay, whether it’s speckled, matte, dark or a warm beige.”

A half dozen ceramic strips, flattened into a curved V-shape, are designed to hold down the pages of a book while you read it.

In a surge of curatorial creativity, Gerig floated them on the wall like cartoon birds, where they surround a vignette of a woman in a swimsuit, crafted from towels and fabric by Buckner.

To weave the trialogue tighter, a painting by Pfleghaar on the neighboring wall sports a wallpaper pattern of V-shapes similar to Carlos’s book weights.

Gerig admitted to having almost “too much fun” connecting so many dots. “The more I look, the more I’m seeing,” she said.

With their soft colors and yielding textures, Buckner’s fabric pieces comfort the eye like a kitchen towel, but upon closer examination, they reveal a wealth of intricate patterns, surprising twists and small details.

“They also drift a bit when the HVAC kicks in, and that adds to the atmosphere,” Gerig said.

Buckner taught at MSU from 2016 to 2019, when Gerig was a graduate student. Gerig loved her work from the start and has wanted to feature it at the gallery for years.

“Her work seems quiet, but there is purpose behind every single cut, every strip, every combination of color and depth,” Gerig said. The patterns expand and contract, like a twisty M.C. Escher print, only with the added dimension of subtly applied pastel colors.

“It’s very personal to her, but at the same time, it feels like something I’d see in my grandma’s home,” Gerig said. But only if you have a very cool grandma.

Before Gerig started to plan “Things that Stay,” Buckner already exhibited work locally with Carlos. Gerig knew the two artists’ work went well together and hatched a plan to bring them in to fill an opening in the gallery’s schedule this month.

The third shoe dropped when Gerig saw images of Pfleghaar’s work on Instagram, taken from a show in Detroit.

“I was blown away by the form, space, color, complexity,” Gerig said.

Pfleghaar said his art is “about relationships,” with the furniture, house plants and other objects in his paintings standing in for human figures. The red tulip in “Phone Down Look Around” bends attentively toward the chair, as if observing or listening.

“Even the plants — each plant is a different person, in a way,” he said. “I don’t literally set out to do it, but I’m always struck by compositions where there is this conversation between elements.”

To Gerig’s delight, all three artists happily agreed to exhibit their work together.

They each have their own take on the resulting trialogue, and so will each visitor.

“We all deal with personal spaces and domesticity, in a way,” Carlos said. “All my pieces in the show have a function. Anna’s work is sewn, and that also feels domestic. Michael’s work depicts personal spaces as well.”

“One of the most rewarding part of my job is pairing artists whose works can be in dialogue in this space,” Gerig said.

“Each of them is a strong artist with a very particular language, and together, they just heighten one another.”