John Adkins Exhibition - Kendall Art Gallery Miami

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on June 28, 2011 at 8:39am

Curator’s Comment:

 

(full disclaimer: John is a very good friend & I have admired his work for many years).

It was so nice to see your work on this site- your obsessive, ornamental treatment of various structural supports never fails to delight.  The works spill over with art historical references, from Byzantine portraits, to jewelry, fetish, reliquary, etc.  These circular tondo pieces remain some of my favorites.  I really enjoy the relationship between the encrusted edges of the pieces, with small figurative gold forms, and the interior, illusionistic, two-dimensional space.  There’s a wonderful interplay between surface image and assertion of the work as sculptural object.  The checkerboard pattern within this piece is particularly striking, as there’s a lost and found quality to the collaged elements- the snake is hidden and orphic within the gold and black shapes, and this creates a sudden tension between implied dangers and the forward looking archaic portrait on top.  The arrangement of the tiny figures on the edges appear at intervals as to suggest a clock face, and the piece itself alludes to the stoppage of time….butterflies frozen in a moment, teeth extracted from the living or deceased.  The exultation of the ephemeral carries through these gorgeously crafted works.

Thanks for sharing.