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Small, flat squares of translucent, pearl-like mica are pieced together to create an oval surface for deep, red ink line drawings of butted circles: Flourish looks like an image of a cluster of grapes and is roughly nailed to a wall washed in peach-colored paint. Shift, a square cast-glass panel with suspended images that reference test tubes, vessels and the valves of the human heart, rests on brackets on the wall beneath. To its right is a stack of small drawings on mica, under which is a large mica bowl painted with undulating white lines. The bowl rests on a pillow, accentuating its fragility and lightness. These are portions of Dana Lynn Louis' installation Wading, the most impressive piece in an exhibition that also includes individual cast-glass sculptures. Being in the midst of its constituent objects, some of which hang from the ceiling--the cast-bronze Seed, the mica-and-wire Spine and the plaster portion of Lost-Waiting--is reminiscent of being on the ocean floor, surrounded by marine life in all its variety. But the feeling is airier, freer, without the underwater sense of compression; Wading is what might be found inside a brightly illuminated cave. One viewer at the exhibition's opening reception said, "I feel like I've entered my own body." Louis has long used a variety of materials, including plaster, wire, paper, hair and wax. Her work has changed dramatically since she moved to Oregon in 1988; back then, she was creating mixed-media human figures ranging in height from a few inches to 7 feet. Her willingness to experiment with subject matter and combine a variety of materials keeps her art continuously fresh. She began working with mica only four months ago, and it composes some of the more successful elements in Wading. Glass, a very difficult medium to master, is also relatively new to Louis' repertoire; she used it for the first time about one year ago. The several table-top-size cast-glass sculptures are in subdued colors--deep greens and purples, brown, amber, and touches of red and yellow. They relate to Wading in their ambiguity: They can be interpreted as misshapen gourds, berries or human organs. Louis has left bits of the plaster mold on their surfaces; it may not add to their aesthetic appeal, but it undoubtedly pronounces their tactility, formal ruggedness and archaeological quality, and it also hints at the artistic process. That these forms and images border on the grotesque makes them oddly beautiful. At their best, they point toward the duality--repulsion and awe--of our relationship with all things biological. Other artists have explored the simultaneity and inevitability of such opposites: The British painter Francis Bacon walked the line between the seductive and the gruesome in his images of flayed animal carcasses, and Eva Hesse--the post-minimalist known for her experimental use of industrial materials in the creation of organic forms--produced sculptures that can be linked to both flora and fauna. Louis indirectly expands upon this previous work. She is careful to allude to elements of the natural world rather than to render explicitly recognizable details. Even the pieces' one-word titles--such as Cell, Seed and Flourish--suggest qualities of both plant and animal life. If the term "post-apocalyptic" did not connote strong associations of destruction, but only of death and rebirth, it might be used to describe these objects. The glass sculptures have greater resonance when they are thought of as elements of Wading, parts of a larger, complete environment--an installation or, one step further, the greater natural world--that distinctly contrasts with our urban, industrial one. |
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