Review: Alison O'Daniel at Samuel Freeman - Los Angeles Times
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Review: Alison O’Daniel at Samuel Freeman

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A pleasing domesticity and kooky spirituality run through Alison O’Daniel’s sculptures at Samuel Freeman. Pure geometric forms crafted out of wood, paper and wire cross paths with more personal items — potted plants, jewelry chains, shoes — to mine the intersection of modernist aesthetics and craft materials.

It’s territory familiar from the work of other L.A. artists like Anna Sew Hoy and Alice Könitz. O’Daniels’ three-dimensional wall drawings — scribbles made of strips of painted paper — are remarkably similar to Sew Hoy’s suspended tangles of fabric.

Her use of blocks and hoops of wood and paper recalls Könitz’s cardboard Minimalist geometries. Yet O’Daniel’s pieces are inspired by a musical score she commissioned for her upcoming feature film (a segment of which is concurrently on view at L.A. Louver), and their charm lies in their curious musicality.

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ART: Can you guess the high price?

Sometimes these references are overt, as in a floor-to-ceiling chain of musical triangles, which are both near-perfect visual forms and instruments of clear, yet indeterminate pitch.

Elsewhere, the allusion to sound is more subtle, as in a hanging mobile of triangles, tuning forks, a potted succulent, and plaster casts of various containers whose slight movements suggest a playful symphony for the eyes.

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Then there’s the trio of tall, looped wire sculptures that might simply be graceful abstractions or perhaps, antennae tuned to alien frequencies.

Samuel Freeman, 2639 S. La Cienega Blvd., (310) 425-8601, through Aug. 17. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.samuelfreeman.com

ART: Can you guess the high price?

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