RAY BURGGRAF, THE EARLY work at a time when the gallery scene has all but shut down, the Venvi Art Gallery keeps finding ways to stay in touch with the Tallahassee community and expand its reach. Ray Burggraf: The Early Work exhibition, open November 6th to January 10th, will continue this work. There will not be the usual evening opening but Venvi’s 2901 E. ParkAvenue location will be open for limited hours with masks and social distancing, Wednesday through Sunday from 12:30-5:30 pm during the Burggraf show. In addition, there will be a virtual show to enjoy on the Venvi website (www.VenviArtGallery.com) with a link to a video about the artist, with his fast-paced video paintings and inspirations on YouTube. There will also be video clips about the show on Venvi’s Facebook page and a brief discussion about individual paintings on Instagram. At one point in the artist’s youtube video, you are looking out of a car whizzing along a straight rural San Joaquin Valley road with the sounds of traffic in your ears. You can’t help but be grateful when suddenly the scene changes to his art studio where a languidly rotating color sculpture calms things down with the loud noise and visual rush fading away to silence. In contrast with the car scene, you have the pleasure of the quiet and peaceful simplicity of his art. This is the strength viewers will find in the geometric abstractions showcased in Ray Burggraf, The Early Work. Burggraf’s art has changed constantly over the years as he has sought to renew himself creatively. Back in 1970, after he came to Florida from UC Berkeley, his works were exclusively geometric abstractions featuring only a few colors. Unfettered by realism, they emphasized a repetition of shapes evolving into patterns. That is in stark contrast to laterpaintings–still gradations of color, but more complex with motion, organic shapes, and even taking on sculptural form. This exhibition’s pieces were selected exclusively from the earlier geometric abstraction period which includes acrylic on canvas paintings that contain serious analytical comparisons of color and value brushed vigorously on the surface in smooth, blended gradations, often in shapes that appear restless and spacey. Viewers will be rewarded if they take their time in front of these paintings and let their eyes wander among the shifting shapes and color comparisons. They will see a surface that is never flat, but rather suggests equivocal, balanced, and free-spirited in and out spaces. The gradations of blended paint mixed on the canvas give a pleasant uncertainty to exactly what colors they are. And possibly can even convey the feeling that one is looking over the shoulder of the artist as he adds to the developing composition. Viewers will also note that here is a person who is obsessive about quality and who actually sees painting as constructing a reflector of the different wavelengths of light that allow the human eye to perceive its various hues.