Raw

Often when abstract artists paint simple images with varying degrees of representational imagery, the viewer feels a little left out. It is no one’s fault, really; the artist is creating compositions based on personal ideas, and the viewer isn’t necessarily held accountable for not picking up on all of the clues to what a painting’s meaning might be. What’s best for the viewer is simply to enjoy the basic punch of a piece, to savor whatever raw feelings an artist is able to render with the basic medium of paint. Such is the case with a show of Richard Duning’s latest work, titled Allies, at the Solomon Dubnick Gallery, located at 2131 Northrop Avenue. The thick, often bright paintings, with compositions of basic lines and roughly articulated human forms, are enjoyable not only for their formal elements, but also for the crude basic emotions of energy and spirituality that allow the viewer to be further engaged.