|
• Cover
• News | blog
• Music | blog
• Lazy I
• Film | blog
• Theater | blog
• Art | blog
• Sports
• Lifestyle | blog
• Dish | blog
• Books | blog
• Culture
• 8 Days
• Heartland Healing
• Hoodoo Blues
• MoJoPo
• News of the Weird
• Television
• Letters
|
|
|
Home - Art
|
Aerial Support
|
Scaffolding benefits artist Day’s cosmic exploration
by Michael J. Krainak
“You need more help than you know. You’re trying to live your life in open scaffolding.”
The operative word for local artist Mary Day, in the line above from the poem “Bismillah,” is “scaffolding,” also the title of her current exhibit at Nebraska Arts Council’s Fred Simon Gallery. Scaffolding, which features Day’s drawings and sculptural objects, will continue through March 26.
“Bismillah” was written by Persian mystical poet Rumi, “an ongoing source of encouragement and inspiration for me,” Day said at her opening last Friday. Those viewers familiar with her past delicate and endearing cloud/atmospheric drawings — and there are several here as well — that “are essentially a meditation on vastness” will be pleasantly surprised also by the inclusion of wood and reed wall and stand-alone, largely abstract sculptures that reference nature, science and architecture.
These latter works, an interesting combination of structure and Day’s signature bit of whimsy, may be her response to another phrase in “Bismillah,” Give up to grace. The ocean takes care of each wave ’til it gets to shore. Rather than provide a boat or other vehicle for life’s journey, the artist offers, instead, her own form of cosmic, orbital scaffolds that serve as metaphors for what the word implies, a method of support for a work in progress.
With titles such as “Dervish,” “Holding Containment” and the very telling two-piece corner installation, “Cosmology,” these polished and refined, yet ethereal equations are metaphoric of Day as well, an admitted work in progress herself. It may be pejorative to some to say that an artist not only works but “lives” in their own world, but this is especially true of those who attempt to create a cosmic response to the chaos that surrounds us.
Day’s world, as seen in this work, represents a sort of threshold to a parallel universe of peace, harmony and certainly joy, often in sight but sometimes elusive as well. Making this connection to a better place may require a quantum leap of faith for both her and her viewers, but her art alone is well worth the effort. Day’s sculptures, previously mentioned, dominate here, but none so much as her showpiece, the large, imposing “Gate.”
Almost 5’ by 3’, “Gate” is a sophisticated, lattice-like wall-relief, a trellis if you will, that holds virtually all of Scaffolding’s contradictory organic and geometric visual motifs, in a structured gateway to the next dimension. Day credits this duality to her meditations on The Tree of Life with its emphasis on, not only that all life is related, but the coexistence of opposites in all things, i.e. good/evil, male/female, life/death.
Which would also explain her love and fascination with wood, “a beautiful and magical material itself,” Day says in her artist statement. “Its source as a living tree is humbling for me. Each piece of wood is unique and yields to my hands in different ways.”
Despite the profound nature and sublime beauty of much of her work in this show, there are subtlety and a bit of tentativeness also, a sort of push/pull implied in her progress. Her stand-alone whirling dervishes are nevertheless anchored to a base, ceiling or wall, but then that, too, is part of the human condition. Even the billowing, esoteric drawing, “Column,” presents its peek into the unknown through a barrier.
This humility carries over to the curatorial presentation of the work in the gallery whose own dramatic brick and stone walls, exposed rafters and metal ductwork serve to prevent individual pieces from “popping” or asserting themselves.
Yet, somehow, the melding of her work into a background of light, shadow and natural materials seems to reinforce their purpose. For some, math, science and architecture provide a scaffolding for their search for the truth. Day’s scaffolds are made of paper and pencil, wood and reed and a character all her own.
Scaffolding continues through March 26, at the Fred Simon Gallery in the lower level of the Burlington Building, 1004 Farnam St. For details visit nebraskaartscouncil.org. |
|
|
|
|
|
