THE Magazine - Los Angeles

The invitation card calls Danielle Eubank an "expedition artist," creating an odd but apt sub-genre out of Eubank's propensity for painting in far-flung corners of the globe, often as part of water-borne "expeditions" devoted to ichthyological, archaeological, and other research. Given the sometimes fractious nature of the politics on shore -- Eubank has painted in the eastern Mediterranean and the waters of Indonesia, among other locations -- one understands the invocation implied in the title of her show as no mere play on words, but as a plea for a more peaceful planet.

Eubank's principal -- and here exclusive -- subject is the gently rippling surface of water, apparently coastal waters at low tide, at sunset or sunrise, or at other times and places that find such water becalmed. Eubank's focus is thus centered and meditative, her pictures presenting themselves almost as visual mantras. But even when her canvases (most of which, like the gallery itself, are relatively small) are filled with nothing but lapping, reflective wavelets, the charge they give the eye equals the balm they apply to the soul. Eubank finds the effects of light on water endlessly engrossing; she infects us with her fascination not simply by depending on water's inherent ability to mesmerize us but by amplifying that ability with slyly applied painterly skills. She renders her hyperrealist ripples with a subtle edge, slightly exaggerating the contrast between warm and cool tones, lights and darks, animating them just a bit beyond how they naturally appear. Eubank's aqua-centrism has been compared to Monet's. Her approach is, if anything, just the opposite of the French master's late-period method, but the result is similar: an immersion that rewards the eye with uncanny, sensuous vibrancy.