Dream On: 'Lucid Dreaming'

REGARDING “LUCID DREAMING” at Curator’s Office feels similar to the aftermath of vivid fantasies and nightmares borne of the deepest REM. The images refocus in the mind; their symmetry morphs and gains less clarity but more depth.

Simon Gouverneur, Jason Hughes and Paul Laffoley have mined the id for its jewel-like excavations amid the physical jetsam along the fringes of the mind’s eye. In Laffoley’s “Geochronmechane: Time Machine From the Earth,” a gridlike structure suggest the biomechanical flights of H.R. Giger if they were given a serious buff and polish.

Hughes’ “Power Trip” reads like an American Indian fabric print whose whimsical spiral patterns juxtaposed red and black, bringing to mind, perversely, the current economic crisis, each pinwheel spinning like a wheel of (mis)fortune.

Gouverneur’s “Mara” is almost a trompe l’oeil. Eye shapes are layered over what appear to be the letter and number tests you squint at during eye exams. Hughes’ “Manifest” is rendered in fatigues colors and aligns its triangles and circles with military precision. “Peyote” is vision-blurring cascade of zigzags, but each melting into the waterfall of its partners like an optical illusion.

Nothing on display here is a trick. But what can be seen will linger long after you visit. In Washington’s current state of being, believing is seeing.

» Curator’s Office, 1515 14th St. NW, Suite 201; 202-387-1008.

Written by Express’ Christopher Correa
Photo courtesy Curator’s Office