Alanna Lawley, a Brit, and Matt Giel, a Philly-local, team up to present an absolutely seamless two-person exhibition this month at Grizzly Grizzly.  Exploring locating (not necessarily location) and environment, they transported me to wherever I was willing to go within the confines of my imagination and their set of defined physical boundaries.

Entering their space presented me with strange but specific first impression: A High-Roller’s hotel room in Atlantic City.  Lawley’s large prints fill the space in a way that allows one to enter and exit the room simultaneously.  Floating staircases, plush seating, and high-end decor dramatize the exhibition to make it feel as if it is a dozen times larger, a subliminal bit of trickery.  I immediately felt as if I’d made it, I’d hit the big time.  Giel’s prints of the ocean, distant in background but nonetheless a necessity, and which circumnavigate Lawley’s interior images, provide a perfect complement of space and tranquility.  His works acts as a pacifying horizon line that you notice only as a constant, until you turn around, when you see that it continues onto a table closer to the entrance rolled into a seemingly infinite spiral that rationality tells you must have an end.  The idea though, that the space can collect itself into a more sculptural element, is in direct agreement with Lawley’s work.  I loved walking through the pieces in this installation.  In the back left corner I noticed a slightly ghostly silhouette of a partial handprint on the ocean image, much like you would find smudged on glass, an reminding me that I’m not the first to enter or observe this place.  I found in the back right corner of the space probably the most poetic moment of the show.  It was a section, no more than a couple feet long, of Giel’s ocean print.  It had been lain in a cardboard box, falling over the sides, just as water spills out of a container when moved.  The notion of moving or transporting objects that take up space into boxes, and later attempting to take (or retain) memories of environment along with you that surrounded these objects to in order to remind you of their previous sense of importance, is summed up in one simple gesture.  I hate the word, but it was kind of “breathtaking”.

I am not always a fan of the work at Grizzly Grizzly.  In fact, this past year, I thought it was probably the weakest space on the 2nd Floor of the 319 Building.  However, this show is not to be missed.  I will make it my job to visit at least twice more before it closes.  ”Duett” runs through January 28th at Grizzly Grizzly.  GO!

(Rating: 4.5/5.0)