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At first glance, the large-scale paintings in Anne Siems' Dream Lessons appear to be fantastical whimsy, like the illustrations of a Victorian-era children's book come to life. On one canvas, an owl perches in a fair young girl's antlers while a hare rests at her feet. In another, a woman holds a duck in her arms while eggs rain from the sky.
Look closer, and you'll see that all of the figures are semitransparent. Their clothes—gossamer white petticoats, corseted hoop dresses, floral pantaloons—show through to the moody black-and-blue gradients of the background, making the figures seem like beautiful figments. They're here but not here, visiting from an imagined place.
This weirdness makes sense, given Siems' intention. The series is essentially her dream diary, an attempt to pay closer attention to her dreams and spill their contents into her work. While the subconscious is a popular mine for artists-—a place of unfiltered ideas that haven't been molded or marred by rational thought—it's rare for the veil between the subconscious and conscious mind to be as obvious as in Dream Lessons.
Siems' figures are a straight allegory for her in-between state, dissolving into the ethereal from chest to ankle, while their feet, hands and heads are always opaque and rooted in the physical world. These are creatures from both places at once. Around them, things like crystals, eggs and flames rain from the sky. The dangerous projectiles are "keepers of time"—clearly a dream offering—according to Siems. But their otherworldliness is balanced by earthly still lifes arranged at each figure's feet. Scattered nests, pottery, stones and woodland animals—squirrels, ferrets, rams, hedgehogs and butterflies—act as tethers to real life.
Sounding ethereal herself, Siems said, "working with dreams has solidified my trust in the well of my unconscious…what must come forth shall make its decisive and deliberate appearance to me."
But you don't need to cross over to fall headfirst into this aesthetic experience. Girl and Duck and Child and Ram can be appreciated on many levels, some of this world. JENNIFER RABIN.
SEE IT: Dream Lessons is at Laura Russo Gallery, 805 NW 21st Ave., 226-2754. Through Dec. 24.
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