THE ARTIST MAKES A SPIRITUAL QUEST  (excerpt)
The News & Observer
What's Up WUP20

Chuck Twardy Staff Writer  

Published: September 29, 1995

    The vagaries of existence ultimately are spiritual, so it is not surprising to find artists increasingly nudging the edges of spiritual questions.

Even if they are not obviously or unqualifiedly religious, even if they reflect only a puzzled agnosticism, they are making spiritual art.

I wouldn't presume to understand what each believes, but Gerry Lynch and Andrea Gomez, featured in separate shows in downtown Raleigh,

clearly are trying to make some sense of elemental issues.

    It would have been great to have both in one large show, but instead we have both in two shows, paired with a different third in each.

At Artspace, they are joined by fellow Artspace artist Pat Scull, in a show organized by N.C. Museum of Art curator John Coffey. And at

Stevens Book Shop and Gallery, Antonio Rivera rounds out the threesome.

    Works in each show clearly relate. Gomez's tortured watercolor of Marilyn Monroe at Stevens could have complemented her larger, more

finished "Suicide" at Artspace, for instance, and several meditations by Lynch on what appears to be one person's death could have been hung

together fruitfully....

    Gomez explores matters more moral than religious, although she touches on several biblical scenes. Her watercolors of Abraham and Hagar

at Stevens Gallery derive from a show at Artspace last year. Also at Stevens, she treats the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden in a new light -

Eve seems to be pulling along a reluctant Adam in "First Fruit," as though encouraging him to taste the consequences, too.

Her style is also quite appealing. She pieces together her compositions with ragged patches of rich color that bring a palpable sense of threat to

three large pastels of landscapes at Artspace. Her watercolor, "Neumann (The Jew)'s Gift to Young Hitler," is the most troubling piece in either show,

depicting the ironic meeting of a gallery owner and the future Fuhrer, the former acting as a tailor fitting the latter before a mirror. A wraithlike child

peers at us from under Hitler's mirrored arm - both us peeking at the scene and Hitler's victims peeking back....

What: "Restless Images," works by Andrea Gomez, Gerry Lynch and Pat Scull.

Where: Artspace, 201 E. Davie St., Raleigh.

When: Through Oct. 28. Monday-Saturday 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

Call: 821-2787.

What: "To Help Us Live: God, Passion, Angst," paintings by Andrea Gomez and Gerry Lynch and drawings by Antonio Rivera.

Where: Stevens Book Shop and Gallery, 107 W. Hargett St., Raleigh.

When: Through Oct. 31. Monday-Friday 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Saturday noon-4 p.m.