An excellent review of the group show I'm in was written by
Taylor Murrow for Pelican Bomb.
Part of the enchantment of film as an art form is its ability to
immediately draw viewers into a world outside of their own, and even if
just for a moment, consider it as their own. It’s an escape from reality
and perhaps also an exploration into a new identity, a new life, a new
way of being. In "Pop Up Show," on view at Martine Chaisson Gallery,
photographs by Ryn Wilson play upon those cinematic expectations
reserved within us. In one diptych,
Game of Thirds, 2012, a
pair of hands dancing along a piano echoes the outstretched arm of a
young woman lounging in the bathtub. This is no particular film, but the
familiar tropes are all there, preying upon that universal part of the
subconscious that secretly envisions starring in someone else’s scene.
Taryn
Möller Nicoll invites a glimpse into our inner selves through her
dissection of the body. In many cultures, bones are viewed as sacred
elements; they represent humanity at its physical core, the most
fundamental part of existence. In her photographic prints of collage,
Nicoll forms collections of bones, like an archaeologist on an
excavation rummaging through the remains of some lost species. In
simplest terms, Nicoll points out the obvious: we are but a grouping of
bones, muscles, and viscera. Are the desires unearthed by Wilson’s works
any less significant in Nicoll’s anatomical view? Which facet defines
us as more “human”—the body, the brain, or is it something else?
Carl
Jung believed that within the unconscious mind lies the anima and
animus—the feminine inner personality of the male or the masculine inner
personality of the female. In
Anima and
Animus, both
2013, Joli Livaudais has printed two life-size figures on aluminum,
presiding like anointed deities over the gallery. The male
Animus clutches a pomegranate in one hand and antlers in the other. While the female
Anima is gently bathed in light,
Animus appears more malevolent, shrouded in darkness, suggesting that both figures equally define the complexities of humanity.
At
its core, the process of making art is an investigation—into the world
around us, the unknown, and, of course, the self. Some of the artists in
"Pop Up Show" challenge the fixed delineations of our bodies and our
selves, and, in turn, ask where the intangibles—what we might call
creativity or even the spirit—lie within. The question is not new, but
remains inconclusive, reminding us why art, a medium that traffics in
the ineffable, is a crucial vehicle for its exploration.
"Pop Up Show" on view until June 29 at Martine Chaisson Gallery (727 Camp Street) in New Orleans.
