Talent in Two Textures

Woman with Hand on Back of Head #3, 1997. Private collection.

Splatters and stone fine complements at Lanning Show

The Columbus Dispatch, Columbus, OH 8/17/97
By Jacqueline Hall
Dispatch Art Critic
Two fresh and dynamic talents join forces in an exhibition at the Lanning Gallery. Stephen Fessler's huge tapestry-like paintings have been a part of group presentations in central Ohio and around the state this year; this, however, is the first time a large selection of his work is showing.
Christopher Diersen's stone sculptures are making their exhibition debut.....
...Fessler's work is hard to forget and worthy of following. Diersen's stone sculptures are excellent foils to Fessler's paintings.
For a carver without formal training - he began to sculpt stone while a geology instructor - Diersen creates remarkably dynamic pieces. Using alabaster, chlorite, and steatite, he works in an abstract mode which varies from vaguely representational (Woman with Hand on Back of Head #3) to nonobjective (Sympathetic Form).
All the sculptures are executed with great feeling for balance in lines as well as positive and negative volumes.
Cliff Dweller, 1997 (since lost).

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