Mark Sheinkman and Dean Smith reviewed in Philadelphia Inquirer
posted: 4/18/11
Pencil to paper Dean Smith, a Bay Area artist, and Mark Sheinkman, a Manhattan-based one, are well-matched in a two-person show at Gallery Joe: Smith's pulsing drawings are compositions of fastidiously drawn concentric lines; Sheinkman's undulating "drawings" develop through his erasures of his drawings. Though abstract, Smith's obsessive drawings can resemble scallop shells, parts of the human body covered with hair, cross-sections of tree trunks, and other natural patterns. They're as labor-intensive and meditative as Tibetan sand painting, but also full of dark humor. Sheinkman's erasure drawings are simpler than the works of his last show here. Images that used to suggest curls of smoke stolen from film-noir close-ups have given way to looping, less-referential forms. Curiously, they're more mysterious than ever.