YOUNG ARTISTS ON THE MOVE

CURIOSITY
On view at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport, Maine
From January 11 to February 22, 2003
Featuring work by Aaron Stephan, Michael Branca, Catharine Draper, Lauren Fensterstock, Rachel Katz, Richard Keen, Pamela Clark, Kristen Eckmann, Erika Hansen, Sean Ryan, Michael McFalls, and Pia Walker.

By Laurie Meunier Graves

According to the New York Times, there is a movement afoot with younger artists, especially those who do not live in New York City. They are banding together in collectives to do their art. “The collectives can exist on the Internet, or be housed in art schools, apartments, storefronts, and minivans.” Judging from the photographs of some of the work, their art is as untraditional as their approach. There is a strong emphasis on collage and found objects, on wigs and sweaters and cutouts. (One can only be thankful that no toilet seats were featured.) Young artists, it seems, are endlessly inventive and resourceful.

At the Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport, there is an exhibit called Curiosity that features the work of twelve young artists from Maine. Nowhere is it mentioned that these artists are part of a collective, but their art very much reminds me of what I saw in the New York Times.

The danger, of course, with using mundane but unconventional materials is that they can overwhelm the piece and turn it into something that is merely odd. Although odd may be interesting, it isn’t necessarily art. This is certainly not the case with the work featured in Curiosity. It is an astonishing exhibit where the artists have used materials such as tea bags and burdock burrs and blue vinyl in ways that are fresh, meaningful, and, at times, transcendent.

In such a striking exhibit, it is difficult to pick out favorites, but in the end, my mind returns to the work of Erika Hansen and Pia Walker. Ms. Hansen has made pairs of little white plaster hands and has suspended them by black thread from the ceiling. It looks like they are winging their way upward, and somehow, this makes me think of the amputee victims of Sierra Leone. Ms. Hansen has also fashioned a quilt from tea bags that are still aromatic. It’s called Ladybird, Ladybird, Fly Away Home. There is a tea-bag home in the center surrounded by what looks like tea-bag mandalas, but are probably the ladybirds. In two other of Ms. Hansen’s pieces, books have been sacrificed (an uncomfortable thought for me, I must admit) to make clothes. In one, there is a little dress with shoes across from a jacket with mittens. (Sister and brother?) Small paper umbrellas hover over both of them, and the detail on the clothes—from the quilting on the jacket to the bodice of the dress—is nothing short of amazing. Not far from them is a slinky paper dress (mother?) that is surrounded by little planes that look as though they’ve been made from the book I’m Flying. Gazing at these pieces, it is easy to imagine a whole family suggested by clothes that have been made from books.

Nearby, to continue the clothing motif, there is Pia Walker’s two-headed sweater made from burlap and what must be hundreds of burdock burrs. In its prickliness, it is both appalling (a burr shirt?) and beautiful at the same time. Who would have guessed that there was so much color variation among burdock burrs? Some are light, some are dark, and the mix gives the sweater a variegated look. Ms. Walker’s work also includes a wax head, tipped on its side, with netting coming from it. The netting is weighted with lead, giving the head a look of patient suffering. Finally, there are bloody hands holding a nest of thorns with an egg in the center. This one is called Hope, but that’s certainly not the feeling it gives.

Also of note is Vinyl Lace by Catherine Draper. This is a large piece of blue vinyl with lace patterns (from Grandmother’s lace collection) cut into it. It is lovely and translucent and throws shadows on the wall behind it. Vinyl, the bane of modern materials, has been transformed into something beautiful.

Then there is Sean Ryan’s full-sized filing cabinet made entirely of paper. How he contrived this I can’t even begin to imagine.

What I’ve written about is just a sampling of the wonders, and, yes, curiosities in this show. It is always exhilarating to be in the presence of talent that has such spark and creativity. This is a show that deserves a wide audience, and I hope it gets it.  

 

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