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Category: Visual Arts Gallery Stroll San Antonio Express-News Web Posted : 05/19/2002 12:00 AM Donna Pardue's
"The Ears of Sundry Gods" Austin artist Donna
Pardue's unusual art exhibit of decaying, meticulously carved apples could
just as easily have been called "The Apples of My Eye." The 46-year-old
artist attracted to the rubbery, "fleshy" quality of dried-out Granny
Smith apples as a medium makes statements about mortality, aging and
feminism and even wards off evil spirits with her diminutive pieces shaped
like hands, ears, torsos and feet. They are carved with an apple peeler
and a knife, and then finished with an Exacto knife. She must take into
account shrinkage over many months to keep tiny proportions realistic.
"(Apples) age like human skin," Pardue said about her wrinkled, leathery
art pieces, which indeed have acquired a human tint. Pardue calls apples
"the archetypal fruit," citing the Bible and ancient mythology. Suspended
within wooden frames, the pieces look like voodoo charms or a witch's
amulets. The titles are equally thought-provoking: "Glory Hand," "Mano
Fico," "Mano Cornuto," "Eye in Hand, Hamsa," "La Mano Poderosa," "The
Ears of Sundry Gods," "Hunger Artist," "Bound Foot" and "Adam Ate Most
of It." Fifteen shriveled apple ears make up the piece called "The Ears
of Sundry Gods." Held to the wall by straight pins, the detached ears
were inspired by Sept.11. "It's about all those prayers being at cross
purposes," said Pardue. "And maybe they cancel each other out." --Hector Salda๑a "Niki Bonnett: Impressions"
Using old letters,
photos and images printed on cloth with a copying machine, Niki Bonnett
creates multilayered collages that suggest a wide spectrum of relationships
and emotions. Bonnett, who holds a degree from the Rhode Island School
of Design and has more than 15 of years experience as a graphic designer,
moved to San Antonio four years ago to study with Jane Dunnewold, who
teaches surface design at the Southwest School of Art & Craft. In her
multimedia pieces, Bonnett combines traditional crafts such as hand-dyeing,
stenciling, silk-screening and rubber stamping with more high-tech techniques,
such as computer-manipulated images and photocopying. "These pieces are
about different situations we all encounter in life, but they are not
autobiographical," Bonnett said. "Each person who looks at my work brings
their own rich past with them and in doing so takes something especially
theirs away with them." "Fortune's Designs," for example, includes a pair
of dice, a 4-H pin, a gambling slug and a child's portrait, all measured
by a piece of ruler. On one level, it could be a warning against gambling
addiction, but it is also a meditation of the chance events in life, the
unpredictability of existence. "Opportunity/Risk," an earlier, larger,
nicely framed piece, contrasts a doorway, a key and a screen showing
the way we view opportunities in life. "Ways of Seeing," with a glass
eye, gauze and a math table, suggests that there are ways of perceiving
the world that go beyond sight. "The Seekers" are ghostly shrouds of dyed
cloth suggesting totemic figures containing concealed "hearts" made of
fabric and paper. Each seeker is draped with a burlap cloak and marked
with one of the eight elemental trigrams of the I Ching. Bonnett says
her seekers are designed to help people who are searching to interact
with their subconscious mind. Mounted on an armature of twisted and sculptured
barbed wire, the seekers evoke guiding spirits. Weaving together the traditional
and the contemporary, Bonnett manages to spark both nostalgic memories
and ways of thinking about the future. --Dan R. Goddard "Jam Session" This exhibit, loosely
organized around the theme of music, brings together some of the city's
finest young guns Juan Ramos, Vincent Valdez, Alex Rubio and Regis
Shepard among them with L.A. David in the mix to bring up the median
age. In Rubio's portrait "S--- City Dreamgirl," rendered in the artist's
signature heat-wavy stroke in velvety graphite, the figure seems to be
surfacing from
the dark depths of a dream. Intense and intimate, the piece packs a visceral
punch. It is a good companion to Shepard's somewhat confusing but nonetheless
compelling ink-on-paper comment on 9-11. "The Gas Face" is a triptych
of images including Uncle Sam and the Taliban equivalent, both seemingly
blinded, flanking what looks like a mutant DJ spinning discs, and transmitting
the "WTC mix tape" and "America remixed" through thick black cords directly
into the turbaned heads of an angry crowd below. It's good to see photographer
Joanna Armijo Zamarron showing some new images. The photographs, including
two of Taco Land impresario Ram Ayala, are basically documentary-style
images with the digital twist of elements in color. The composition of
the photographs is pleasing in its simplicity, but unlike Zamarron's previous
work, the images lack emotional heft. For the most part, the work in the
show meshes well, but there are a few pieces that will have you humming
that "One of these things doesn't belong here" song from "Sesame Street,"
chief among them Daniel Kelly's well-crafted but too-cute metal sculptures
"The Loudest Flautist" and "Spencer Snails on the Stand-up Bass." -- Elda Silva Rae Culbert: "Tora
Bora" Clamber down the rough cedar-log steps and climb up through a hatch in the bathroom floor. Shine the flashlight around and look out the windows, filled with layer upon layer of sediment. Taking off on Walter De Maria's New York Earth Room, basically an empty room filled wall to wall with dirt, San Antonio artist Rae Culbert has turned this avant-garde duplex into a semblance of an underground bunker. The title refers to a suspected hiding place of Osama bin Laden; however, this labor-intensive instal- lation is also a child's ultimate play fort, reflecting the typical boy's desire to burrow into tun- nels. Culbert excavated a subterranean entrance from beneath the floor of Sala Diaz, which rests on wooden piers. Roofing tin covers each of the windows, and the spaces between the metal and the glass are filled with dirt. It's pitch-dark in the house, there's no air conditioning and you have to be fairly nimble to make the journey through the opening tunnel. Once inside, you might feel like you're in a lost mine, and it's rather scary, particularly if you suffer from claustrophobia. Instead of bringing a little of nature into the city like De Maria's earthwork, which is a calm and meditative space, Culbert's installation is disturbing and unsettling, evoking memories of the underground fortresses of Vietnam and places where terrorists and other vermin like to hide. --Dan R. Goddard 05/19/2002 |