I use the adjective "amazing" because, regardless of high fallutin' art critics' continued attempts to dismiss realism as a leading "contemporary" member of today's dialogue of art, it keeps staying ahead of them and the rest of the words in that dialogue (witness Richter and Hirst's recent successes).

Rogers' work steals the show, because this being a large group show, size and subject matter, duh... matter! And Rogers' choice of subject matter are rather common subjects (friends and fellow students I assume), elevated by her mastery of the medium, and the size of that presentation, to a sublime state. Furthermore, in using black pastel (rather than charcoal or graphite), she offers the blackest of black in her presentation, which allows the drawings to reveal a surprising range of tones, delivering the always pleasing illusion of reality on a two dimensional plane.

Anne Benolken

I first saw Anne Benolken's mixed media boxes at Art-O-Matic a while back, but I must admit that I saw them in a new light here, and perhaps it was because I saw them more "clearly" and outside of the beautiful cacophony of art that Art-O-Matic delivers. And Benolken tore at my feelings when I read the little book that allows one to read each individual box's title(s) all in sequence. And with titles like "Kali realizes she'll never get her ducks in a row," one gets an insight into the frailties and insecurities and tender areas of Benolken's life and being. By the end of my examination of her works, I wanted to give Benolken a hug.

This is highly personal work that will rarely find commercial success, unless it is preceded by curatorial exposure, as this sort of personal work always seems to find a soft spot in the eyes of museum curators. Benolken has been creating this Kali series for fifteen years, and she should find fertile ground to continue to exhibit its progress in the future in universities, museums and non profit art venues.

Jorge Benitez

My next pleasant discovery were the superbly technical drawings by Jorge Benitez, whose work I've never seen before. At first sight, they're a bit of a head scratcher, as they appear to be blueprints for buildings and planes, etc. But once we read the titles, they are reconfigured in our vision in a whole new light. And now the design for a massive arch titled "Victory in Iraq Triumphal Arch" takes on a new, political meaning; and delivers to artists everywhere the immense power of a title associated with a work of art, and the resulting psychological change that it has on the viewer.