Artist at Rockville: Mary Anne Arntzen

Mary Anne Arntzen’s recent paintings are self-contained worlds populated with nameable and unnamable forms. Repeating stripes, folded chevrons, and jagged starbursts combine with fleshy, bodily tubes creating, moments, events or interactions, a dialogue between passive and active forms or twisted, organic shapes and hand-rendered geometry. They behave as physical objects; catching light, casting shadows, and weaving through surfaces creating entryways and barriers. At the same time, the space is ambiguous. Differing spaces converge to dominate and undermine each other, creating portals and passageways and suggesting transfer between states.