BIRDS BURL BRANCHES & BARK presents the divergent and overlapping interests and aesthetics of Steven S. Powers and Joshua Lowenfels around the loose premise of flora and flying fauna.

Powers’ aesthetic flirts with the traditional, however walks the line of the unexpected and unorthodox, while Lowenfels is well established in the unpredictable, incidental and surprisingly sublime.

Though each presents their own interpretation of the theme—incidental Venn diagram-like overlaps occur. For example, Powers offers a carved granite mother bird with covey by African-American artist James W. Washington, Jr. and Lowenfels counters with nineteenth-century salt and pepper molds in the form of a pair of bird’s eggs with human babies hatching from within. Another is Lowenfels’ unanticipated lid from a tar bucket, with its ground colored a most beautiful vermillion with random dabs of tar upon it—it is a mandala. Powers pairs this with a naive painting by George E. Morgan entitled, Bird of Paradise—its tail feathers echoing the color and metaphysical suggestion of the tar lid.

Powers and Lowenfels will present these and other works at Metro Curates, January 22-25, 2015, 125 West 18th ST, New York, NY 10011.

A 48 page online catalogue is available at http://www.stevenspowers.com/bbbandbark_cat.html