Ms. Alissa Warshaw at Matter Studio Gallery presents us a new form of sensual originality with her opening exhibition Intangible Matter. The idea of concentricity brings with it a sense of focus, and with focus we understand a consistency in aim. Yet what aim is Ms. Warshaws? Her modest compositions – both in scale and paper weight – yield an airiness, a feathery calm with draped watercolors each originally composed.

This feeling of balance is certainly experienced in the regularity to the circular order which takes center stage. The tones aim to introduce Natural elements, which Ms. Warshaw is conscientious of from her upbringing in the Pacific Northwest (Queen Anne Island in Seattle, to be exact). Are we then to claim that her works champion the balancing acts of Nature? I affirm they do. Furthermore, they are to reintroduce us to the Natural World through her extensive soothing cycling towards a mystical conclusion. When does the merry go-round end? Only the artist knows, to deliver us a beautiful idea of harmony.

Ahh yes, harmony. Is this not the aim of Nature? Is this not the aim of every human soul? Its animated festive task, though, finds itself in contradiction with the gentle. But why suggest harmony obligates something counter-opposite of quietness? Perhaps it is because the notion of fun presupposes a harmonious connection with the object one is experiencing; be it the world or the world with other people. Indeed, this is another remarkable feat of being human: our ability to reach harmonious ends so swiftly with the outermost of strangers to our everyday life. Yes, this takes an effort, but how much so when we consider our daily living and the mutual transactions which occur; creating a gargantuan continuum of subjective cycles, all contained and pushed by the Law of Nature – which is resonant with oneness?

Her titles speak to this oneness, then, with the Natural and its everlasting wonder, which one human life cannot possibly fulfill – or as the Taoist says, Always producing more (Tao Te Ching Ch. 5) It is then the outward expression of a beautiful testimony to the Will of the World, no matter how disjointed or disconnected it appears.