Reliquarium Collect...

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on February 14, 2014 at 9:05am

Curator’s Comments: 

 

This encapsulating Reliquarium series contains elements across nature and culture in gorgeously decorated enamel.  Ancient UFO’s is my favorite in the grouping, cleverly combing fanciful shapes associated with myth and conspiracy.  The dotted beading outlining the vessels keeps the eye traveling across an analogous and rather muted color field.  While other pieces maintain a craft or folk sensibility because of the simulation of stitching and quilt/embroidery, the UFO’s combine Pop graphics with a vaguely global or ethnic design.  Corralled in a center mass, they’re more frozen and cryptographic than animated in flight.  I am also very attracted to the piece containing the Venus of Willendorf.  Again combining ancient and familiar biomorphic design motifs, I’m curious about the inclusion of water elements. The fish and diamonds still fall towards the background, and provide a generalized and eclectic contextual surround, while the dominant red hues intensity and further contrast the central blue outline which traps and encases the abstracted figure.  She is divided into pieces which debatably form from the outside compartments of the natural world. There’s a strong signature style in the aesthetic approach of these paintings, but also an exciting range of disparate elements.