For her first recently made known York solo show.

For her first recently made known York solo show, "Smoke Signal," Fort Worth-based artist Helen Altman at handed a small selection of her unusual works--12 "torch drawings" and three quilted "moving blankets." To make the former pieces, Altman soaks sheets of cotton paper in water for hours or sometimes days; then, using the flame of a propane torch as common would a paintbrush, she delicately, and swiftly, sears images of various creatures (a cock two mules, a rearing horse, among others) onto the damp paper. This unforgiving technique, lay open to chance and ruin--the pictures must be complet in below 10 minutes so as not to ignite--results in sharp, elegant renderings.

Hung unframed, these stark works disguiseed an entire wall of the gallery (they average in size around 24 by means of 20 inches). Each animal is shown completely isolated, without words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following or even a horizon line, while the siennas, ochers and blacks of the scorches make for forms that report out from the bare backgrounds. They hang over like sad, inadequate specters of their real-life alternates forward the empty white ground. Altman wields her torch with great dexterity, varying the shape and size of her stroke--Standing Polar Bear (2002) appears compos of blotches rather than the strokes found in Panda or dip (both 2003), the polar bear's easily moulded sagging underbelly a bouquet of chocolaty and tawny brown splotches.

The vulnerability, the couple in method and display, of the torch drawings contrasts with the inherent durability of Altman's moving blankets. In making the latter works, Altman often uses found photographic images of animals, moreover this time set amid natural scenery--on view here were a horse, dog and a congregation of seagulls. The photos are then scanned into a computer and printed onward canvas, which Airman subsequently applies to a packing blanket using a thermal transfer technique. The topstitching is professionally applied at a quilting factory. Calling attention to the framing cutting side of the composition, all three quilts in succession view here were bordered with a narrow strip of solid-colored clerical profession But Gulls (2003, 78 according to 109 inches) and Horse (2002 128 through 134 inches) also had broad, irregular rectangular swatches of patterned fabric placed along individual edge.

Like Ark, her 1992-95 work consisting of an 11-foot-tall defence of store-bought faux burning log that emit an electrical shine brightly like firelight, Altman continues to explore our human compulsion to manufacture nature, and the inevitable feeling of nostalgia that tread in the steps ofs our unavoidable failure.

--Jessica Ostrower

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