San Francisco Bay
'Otherkin'
Through March 5, Lisa Dent Gallery
ROBIN WARD'S " Otherkin" takes its title from a modern religious sect whose devotees believe themselves to be partly animals and draws on this hypothesis to explore the "otherness" that defines the human condition and manifests itself, among other places, in our dreams. Aren't we at least partly animals - although perhaps not in the way the mystical "otherkin" imagine? Isn't this animality what Freud described as an instinctual conflict and offered as the key to understanding fantasy lives and those moments when we appear foreign to ourselves? Ward's carefully drawn animals give her pictures a distinctly surreal quality. In Slump, three men lazily recline in lawn chairs, while elephants and a mule sleep on the ground in front of them with butterflies flying around their heads. Are the animals figures for the men's distracted immobility, or are the men figments in the animals' dreams? Ward provides no reference point to distinguish fantasy from reality, creating a liminal space for reflection on experience in all of its emotionally laden complexity. The commonplace appears alien, while the fanciful appears comforting and familiar. In Horsefly, a white horse looks overwhelmed by the pink butterflies streaming out of its mouth and ass. The image is light and humorous but also remotely frightening as the horse's eyes bulge with revulsion. And in Papersea, horses appear to swim across the picture plane as their bodies disappear beneath the surface of the page like the surface of a river, and Ward explores the tension between fantasy and reality as an art-making complexity by employing the blank page as an illusory element in her composition. Ward works with a carefully defined palette - primarily of blue, gray, pink, yellow, beige, and white - and skillfully employs negative space to accent the clear, deliberate lines of her drawings. Lisa Dent Gallery is a welcome new addition to the downtown art scene and promises to provide a strong program of exhibits, featuring the work of artists from San Francisco and elsewhere. Wed.-Fri., noon-5 p.m.; Sat., 11 a.m.-6 p.m. , and by appt., 660 Mission , fourth fl., S.F. (415) 975-0860. (Clark Buckner)