ArtsCriticATL.com

Rory Golden has developed a winning style. There's a hint of Basquiat's graffiti mannerisms in the way he washes intense color over outlined figures and the graffiti-style images, but he carries it off well. At present, the sociopolitical rhetoric of his artist statement doesn't jibe with the sexual reveries hanging on the wall. Only the small diaristic drawings above the mantle hints at the psychological intensity he may yet achieve.

The lone woman pulling the trash can to the curb in the desolate subdivision in a MegAubrey painting follows a well-worn, maybe worn-out, path of suburban anomie. The long, narrow rectangular format and impersonal terrain catches the eye, though. And the absence of actual homes in the featureless infrastructure brings to mind the half-built subdivisions in recessionary doldrums, which gives them an eerie currency.

Ting Ying Han's sculpture "Missing" could be a typical family-style Chinese dinner, replete with bowls, chopsticks and the requisite lazy susan turn-table, except that everything is made of, or covered with, rice. Both in its form and painstaking craftsmanship this ghostly apparition embodies the artist's memories of cherished family dinners in her native Taiwan. The love child of Surrealist Meret Oppenheim's fur teacup and Georgia artist Sang-Wook Lee's ramen-noodle architecture, the piece is quite touching, though the cramped display space is hardly ideal. (Click photos to enlarge.)

Jason Kofke explores the relationship between meaning and context, using a single sentence, "Everything will be OK," in a variety of ways. The phrase is passive-aggressive, consoling on the surface but interjecting doubt at the same time, as is his use of it. His most successful tactic is graffitoing the sentence in public places. It's shocking what effect those words can have when posted by, say, an airport's flight-schedule monitor or, as left, on a condom dispenser. The art objects, however, feel strained.The drawings with stenciled sentences and books filled with sentences look liked warmed-over Ed Ruscha or On Kawara. Has Kofke ridden the phrase into one of Aubrey's cul-de-sacs? It will be interesting to see his next move.