San Francisco: CRITICS' PICKS
Will Yackulic
GREGORY LIND GALLERY
49 Geary Street
July 07 - August 13

Like a monochromatic game of Tetris in 3-D, Will Yackulic's gouache paintings on paper exude the timeless appeal of digital structures. All the images are built out of units of hand-drawn cubes, rendered in a standard palette of cool blue and white, from which he seemingly organically builds geometric forms that resemble mountains, architecture, and blocky texts. In some ways, Yackulic treads in Ed Ruscha text terrain, though the look is less languid LA than icy imagined cyberscapes informed by edgier phrasings. In one work with a dense black background, a tall, glacier-like mountain rises to a spire. At the top, an architectonic rendering of the word NERVES (also the title) grows out of the structure like signage on a fortress. Most of the paintings are rendered on beige paper backgrounds and have a lighter tone than Nerves (all works 2005). For Brain-Fag Wrecks Who Want to Keep It Dark adds a bit of levity to an image of what looks like a view of an ancient metropolis covered in snow. Here run-together text floats over the landscape in daintier letterpress fonts: "thepoe/etsstudie/dlucifer." There might be something devious at play, but Yackulic invariably balances things out with a dash of sweet simplicity.

- Glen Helfand