Student, teacher hang together

Thursday, May 10, 2007 | 7:28 a.m.

What: "Full Circle"

Where: Trifecta Gallery in the Arts Factory, 103 E. Charleston Blvd.

Through: May 26

Information: 366-7001

A funny thing happened to Joe Borzotta while vacationing in Las Vegas.

The New York artist learned of our humble Arts District, made a trip downtown and wandered into Trifecta Gallery, where he saw the Kathie Olivis exhibit .

What caught his eye was not the art on the walls.

It was a painting stored on an inventory shelf. Borzotta knew the artist. It was Jack Endewelt, his former teacher and mentor from New York, the one he had never forgotten, even though they had long ago lost touch. What Borzotta didn't know is that Endewelt moved to Las Vegas in 2000 and had died in January 2006.

"Full Circle," on display at Trifecta, features the work of Endewelt and his former student. Although many coincidences occurred to make the show happen, gallery owner Marty Walsh isn't only swooning over the sweet back story. The works themselves are complimentary.

"You can tell he was a student," Walsh said, alternately fixating her eyes on their paintings. "Jack was always on his mind. This is such a cool way to put them back together. "

Combining techniques of illustration and painting with random and not-so-random inanimate objects, some of the artists' approaches are eerily similar.

Endewelt was a master of technique and peculiar concepts - gun anatomies and medical illustrations, beautiful airplanes in a hazy blue sky. Borzotta is definitely no slouch. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, he worked as a graphic designer before attending the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where he studied under Endewelt.

Borzotta's works reflect a society on sensory overload, one in which "nothing has time to set in," creating what Borzotta describes as a "visual, mental and psychic gray where everything means nothing and vice vers a."

Like Endewelt, Borzotta segments some of his pieces, creating borderless (and sometimes bordered) portraits on one canvas.

He draws on random images and objects: a pair of keys, a sexy woman, a homemaker, an old-fashioned bicycle, a military man in gas mask, wildlife or vintage-style graphic illustrations.

His triptychs and diptychs offer drawings, text and realist paintings: "I always had this illustration and painting bug teasing me and I wanted to answer it once and for all."

"Caught," features a blue-ink illustration of a woman in a chair, circa 1950s, with a policeman grabbing one arm and a disapproving husband grabbing another. A portrait of a swimming goldfish is above them. A vertical excerpt reads, "Her blazing eyes burned murder, but he could have sworn that an inviting smile momentarily softened her lips."

"Claire Voyant" features an illustrated drawing of a cover of a dime-store novel opposite a realist profile of a tough-looking beautiful woman looking on squinty-eyed - certainly not the damsel who could be kidnapped.

Borzotta, who recently met Endewelt's widow, Barbara, says he once saw an Endewelt exhibit in Manhattan. But he was more familiar with his tight-painted illustrations accompanied by numbers and instructions. Sharing an exhibit is nothing he'd imagined.

"I loved the exhibit postcard, but it made me sad," Borzotta says. "Seeing my name with Jack, I felt honored, but I wish he could be here with me."