The subdued green and red colors of slate belie the intense energy of the bas reliefs in Kerry Furlani's recent exhibit, "The Language of Two Forms." Moving through the works, one is struck by the counter balance of primordial matter and carefully controlled line. Furlani, herself, declares that "Line is everything," and in her work, the defining characteristic is the taut, graceful flow of incised line which contains the burgeoning forms.
Most of the works in this show investigate the relationships between two elements engaged in a formally executed yet intimate and sensuous dialogue. Cut into a substrate of Vermont green slate, smooth contours emerge out of the rhythmically chiseled surface. Furlani sometimes uses old roof tiles, preserving the patina as part of the finished surface, which gives an organic and continuous quality to the contemporary carving emerging from the weathered stone. Highly stylized in the modernist manner of Brancusi, Arp and Hepworth, rounded shapes intertwine; their defining edges overlapping as if one were looking at two x-rays sandwiched together. In "Lost and Found," the exact boundaries of the double silhouettes are sometimes difficult to discern despite the precision of the carved line. Always there is the dialectic between union and separation. An accompanying charcoal drawing, one of several in the exhibit, is a spare study in black and white. Exquisitely shaded, the forms dance in space and give off a radiating energy which animates the companion carving that it inspired.
The slate carver's craft has rarely been used in such an expressive manner. Employing the most elemental and traditional hand tools, wooden mallets and razor-sharp flat chisels, Furlani is able to take what she calls the "rubs" of her life, the dilemmas which seem to have no easy answers, and transmute them into her work. As in "The Lines Between Us," the results reveal a sense of mystery and discreet revelation. The quiet surface of the slate is in constant contrast to the dynamic tension between the forms, a dialogue enhanced by the meticulously cut lines which delineate and divide in the same instant. The titles of the works read like a poem, and in true poetic spirit, the works themselves offer a hint of the recognizable as well as an open ended question which spurs the viewer on to more exploration.
— Bernadette Amore, Art New England, April/May 2008