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Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on July 25, 2013 at 1:16pm

Curator’s Comments:  

 

These are really nice pieces.  I like that they make very little attempt to hide the collaged paper edges of the variously combined surfaces, keeping the hand worked manipulation on the forefront of the picture plane.  The juxtapositions and scale of objects are often humorous, but many defy verbal articulations of the societal constraints or class differences they appear to convey.   This piece for instance, is curious is the seemingly disparate images of a languid female form and small (Swedish?) clad children.  The shadow of the chain links over the cropped achromatic torso suggests fish netting, but she’s stripped of all sensual intrigue because of the graphic nature of the pattern and central emphasis on the children.  I appreciate the numeral three in the upper right of the picture plane as a formal device to pull more visual weight into the top section of the piece, and smooth progress of the upward movement.  But conceptually its presence remains a mystery.  It’s as if the artwork is being cataloged in some way, or functions as a didactic placeholder to remind the viewer of its ancillary purpose, or order.  I’m also attracted to the collage Hanging On.  The more extreme physical manipulation of the paper breaks the tension of the trapeze artist.  The contortion of her body is not a fluid motion, but the folded edge of the support seems to reach out to stabilize her potential fall.  Again the separation between the almost Technicolor / Kodachrome landscape and black and white figures visually and psychologically removes her from her conflicted locale. I also detect a nostalgic nature in the figures in this series.  Most seem to come from iconic mid-century advertising, and cavort in spaces which isolate, and ultimately destroy them.