F

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on August 15, 2011 at 9:05pm

Curator’s Comment:

 

There’s a sense of the sublime in “F”.  The printed image is visceral, and abstract, and yet could also depict fallopian tubes with an utter candor in the framework of other bodily illustrations. White linear elements are skeletal, but the dense brown surrounding space (maybe aquatint?) stops shy of illustrating warm flesh, or yielding to overt representation.  Am I sure of what I’m seeing?  The color is slightly off.  If I’m interpreting the subject correctly, the lime green is calming, but not of the body.  System seems to allow more latitude in its decidedly abstracted subject.  Brain lines are referenced in the organically contoured mass at the top, further reinforcing the intimation of cerebral function in title.  The overlaid chine-collé shapes are slightly more descriptive, but by contrast suggest a transparency of the larger brain shape.  The empty space left in the plate is served well by the small amount of remaining plate tone, calling attention to the bareness of the surrounding picture plane.

I really appreciate the installation shot of several works in the Instinct: Organi series.  The images pull together in a way that one views a series of didactic objects, but with an unexpected ambiguity.  The system is ultimately revealed by repetition of uncertain forms, suggesting that despite all of our knowledge, internal mysteries remain.