For the artist coming of age in a time of economic prosperity, there is proliferation of choice and an unwavering brave new confidence. Now accustomed to technological advances which attest to our increasing speed and agility and maximize our accessibility by varying degrees, this newfound confidence underscores a subtle performance anxiety, and is marked by an underlying structure of doubt. Doubt is the opposite of expectation. Doubt is thought which speculates and enumerates possibilities, while relying on a set of assumptions. Imprinted on the art object is a distinct certainty, the conceit with which a thing is made. An object persists in space, assuming autonomy, taking shape, becoming a form recognized cognitively. Certain forms are considered to be more certain than others, and in some cases, referred to as pure, "a sure thing." In geometry we recognize and understand clarity. But while geometric forms may be precise, accurate and confident, they also suggest abstraction; the hypothetical; and promiscuity in meaning. With Jove and a Co-dependent, Seth Kelly has created two spheres set diagonally apart. One begins to doubt one's faith in more personal geometries.

A sphere with pentagonal, square, and triangular sides, painted in warm tones - sienna, orange, amber - reaches atonality with the addition of crisp light blue, deep blood red, and muddy gray. As its opposite, sulking in tantrum, the other sphere undergoes a noticeable meltdown, a maladroit, spontaneous combustion. Rings melt and drip messily around the sphere and onto the floor. The surface, full of craters, is pock-marked in fiery hues of yellow, orange, brown and white. An unattractive thing, it is the monster under the skin, the eye of the storm, the hideous id. One makes out a split universe.

Where the Minimalists attempted non-relational sculpture, Kelly acts on a modernist impulse in which sculpture is relational. The relationship between the two objects is one of indifference, as inactivity makes clear. Indifference is exposed in all its angular beauty, and its angular cruelty. Yet each sphere has attributes which the other lacks. One sphere festers, while the other is unaffected and perfect; it glows on all sides, content and oblivious, much like the object of a love unrequited. Solace cannot be found in geometry. The geometric sphere, with its multifaceted sides, alludes to the facile nature of the Co-dependent: a psychology which exhibits itself as a rational set of behaviors. The geometric sphere is the perfect game piece, waiting to be played, rolled, or enacted on any axis, while the planet of ruination self-destructs, fulfilling expectations. Jove, the expression of surprise - etymology from the Roman god, descendant of the planet Jupiter, the planet of surprise - can be found in the serene geometric sphere as well as in the swirling painted mass. With the proliferation of choice comes an instability in meaning that engenders self-delusion. Often in thought and intention there is a blind spot. One experiences thought doubting itself; the suggestibility of a visual language supersedes intent. What is doubt but an acute recognition of something dimly recognizable? Doubt is a momentary flash of recognition, an impulse to question the certainty of things, of surroundings. Doubt is delusional, trap-door of post-revelatory self-sabotage. It is not a programmatic impulse. And how this is perceived in an artwork like Kelly's remains abstract, for both structures contain properties that corroborate and refute one another.

Kelly offers two distinct abstract models - surprise and need - which balk at interpretation. The structures in question exist as models for somewhere or something else. As easily as one arrives at a discernible meaning through a set of assumptions, slight movement or reversal releases doubt. Here, perception culminates not through belief but in disbelief. Whether amorphous or geometric, there remains a logical disbelief, a second-nature skepticism inherent in our view of objects, pictures, places, and experiences. We doubt intention, interpretation, and the belief in the transcendent object or experience. Art has the power of suggestibility through plastic form, subjective color, and autonomy of material.

While the preceeding decade of favorable economics has left some confident and full of anticipation, and others complacent, one senses a fissure, not a deafening boom. The pendulum sways from safety to risk. Art overblown with confidence suggests a reaction to our present circumstance as insufficient. Although doubt as a visual cadence appears antithetical to confidence, it is necessary for the former to occur, for with doubt comes accuracy and anticipation. Art, with its ability to induce revelation, where the autonomous object or static image gains momentum of meaning through theatrical disbelief, does provide us with yet more impossible possibility.