Waltman Ortega Fine Art announces the opening of two solo shows: “Aberration” by Joe Segal and “Permutations“ Jorge Enrique in October.

"Aberration" by Joe Segal opens at the White Room of the gallery and is comprised of the artist's most recent wooden sculptures. The works represent the new development - or an aberration - in Segal's oeuvre. Now he takes us from his subtle natural finishes to the highly saturated, pigmented sculptures in red, yellow and blue.

Joe Segal uses mainly reclaimed wood as the foundation to explore themes pertaining to the illusiveness of nature and the passage of time. His latest works introduce a new element to his thoughtprovoking, minimalist wall sculptures - color.

"My most recent sculptures are a departure because of the way that color is being used," states the artist, "I've always thought of lumber as a processed material that has the energy of nature beneath its surface. I expose areas of beams to show this force but in the past, my surface treatments (burning, scraping, whitewashing) have been used to show the material's passage through time which is an evolution from tree to lumber then to sculpture. In the new work, color is used to emphasize the power of the raw material."

Segal refers us to the ancient Chinese art, in which life is symbolized by tsung, a notched column and heaven is represented by pi, a disc. Tsung was the inspiration for the vertical sculptures such as those in the "Seam" series. The circular sculptures combine the symbol for life and heaven through a disc that is notched and segmented.

"I think of my work as observations of time passing and these round pieces are also statements about different concepts of time. There is a notion that time is linear: the past is somewhere behind us while the future is farther ahead. There is also a cyclical concept of time: the sun rises and sets every day, the seasons come every year. In all of my work I try to express a desire for balance and composure especially when dealing with contrasting ideas."

Segal's work has been exhibited at many public institutions, including The Museum of Contemporary Art, Jacksonville, The University of North Florida, The Cummer Museum of Art, The Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Crisp-Ellert Art Museum. He has been awarded an individual Artist Fellowship from The Florida Division of Cultural Affairs and received numerous "Fostering Vitality in the Arts" Grants from the Jacksonville Community Foundation. His sculptures are in the permanent collections of the Bass Museum in Miami Beach, the Lowe Museum in Coral Gables, and the Jacksonville Museum of Contemporary Art.