Contributed by Iris Cushing / Donna Dennis is an artist of transition and transformation. Her architectural installations – which she pioneered in the 1960s and has continued to develop – often take the shape of transitory sites: subway stations, hotels, tourist cabins, and, in the case of her show “Ship/Dock/Three Houses and a Night Sky” at Private Public Gallery in Hudson, a loading dock. Like much of Dennis’ work, this installation draws on her experience and observation of vernacular spaces. It evokes industrial structures on the shore of Lake Superior, where the earth’s minerals are loaded on freighters by the ton and transported over water. This work marks the first time in Dennis’ expansive career that she’s combined three-dimensional architecture with painting. In merging the two media, she seamlessly creates a world for viewers to dream into.

Contributed by Marjorie Welish / As faithful to his subject as he is charming in craft, Ernst Caramelle focuses his attention on the plane—the plane as protagonist undergoing trials, trials to test the caliber of its planarity. In his solo show of work on paper at Peter Freeman, Caramelle renders the plane within an architectural space intimate enough to suggest a room, yet generic enough also to indicate an artist’s studio as a site of theory.