In the Tiger Strikes Asteroid space – a Knight Arts grantee – the photographic locales found in the work of Gillian Pears truly serve to usher the viewer “Elsewhere,” which is appropriately also the title of the show curated by Jaime Alvarez. Segments of bright, crisp color are broken up by dangling sheets, twine and metallic fixtures, which serve to both divide the images and anchor these works in reality.

Five 35- to 55-inch digital C-prints are mounted around the room, allowing for a considerable amount of negative space between the images. This airy openness mimics the sentiment of the prints themselves, which contain very little positive space or content to latch onto. While their composition makes the pieces somewhat cryptic, it also allows for a wash of possibilities in the same respect. Surely aware of or influenced by color field paintings by the likes of Mark Rothko, Pears provides swaths of bold, saturated hues which are only fettered by splashes of light, shadow and the objects she includes.

Gillian Pears, “_28.”

For her largest photo, a white, lightly wrinkled sheet of fabric dangles over a spread of three barely-perceptible lengths of what appears to be fishing line. In many other contexts this sheet might seem ghostly or ethereal, but here it is practically the only connection to the physical world. Behind the not-quite-wash-line fixture lies a luminous expanse of peachy orange. The fabric breaks the otherwise enveloping area of summery mango by casting a dim shadow, as if nudging a daydreamer back from the brink of fantasy.

Gillian Pears, “_35.”

The blue-green field in an adjacent piece is blasted from the right hand side by some unseen light source and the left is cast in a relative shadow, not by some object, but only by comparison to the opposite end of the frame. Slightly to the right of the midpoint, a series of strings weave through eye hooks, introducing line elements to the otherwise drowning pool of sea foam. Their thin shadows are much more subtle than in many of the other works, making their physicality all the more stark.

Artwork for sale to raise funds for CITYWIDE. Artists include: Rubens Ghenov, Douglas Witmer, Jaime Alvarez, Ezra Masch, Caroline Santa, Alexis Granwell, Anne Schaefer and Theresa Saulin Frock.

Gillian Pears provides a meditative landscape of formal elements that allows visitors to embark on a real trip “Elsewhere” while still providing footholds to obscure bits of everyday life. The door to Tiger is also adorned with work by eight artists. These pieces are for sale in order to raise proceeds for the Knight Arts challenge grant that will fund CITYWIDE, a month-long, multi-venue meeting of the minds that will serve to connect Philadelphia’s energetic and expansive artistic communities.

Tiger Strikes Asteroid is located at 319 North 11th St., 2H on the second floor, Philadelphia; [email protected]; philadelphia.tigerstrikesasteroid.com.