Enthralling Eggsactitudes
By Tom Wachunas
“…Working in all artistic
media from oil, acrylic and watercolor paints to encaustic, fiber, and
ceramics, from printmaking, photography, and pen & ink, to sculpture, light
works and sculpture, the artists transform ostrich eggs into works of great
beauty that refer to traditions in high art—the Imperial Easter eggs crafted by
Peter Carl Fabergé—and to folk traditions as well—beeswax-decorated Ukrainian
pysanaky eggs….”
Full background,
photos, and curator’s statement at:
EXHIBIT: Art
360°: Contemporary Art Hatching Across Ohio, Curated by Charles Bluestone/ at
Massillon Museum, Second Floor Gallery/ THROUGH
FEBRUARY 12, 2017 / 121 Lincoln Way East, downtown Massillon /
330-833-4061 / 44 contemporary artists
from across Ohio have embraced the challenge of embellishing ostrich eggs; they
have come together in a wide variety of forms to demonstrate the creativity of
the arts community.
“The world is full of hopeful
analogies and handsome, dubious eggs, called possibilities.” - George Eliot
Entering this
beautifully mounted exhibit on the second floor of Massillon Museum is to enter
a world of ovoid oddities, a world of curiouser and curiouser orbs. Eggs, to be
exact. Ostrich eggs, to be exacter.
These alluring
objects are a universe apart from, say, typical decorated Easter eggs, which
are essentially a Christian adaptation of much more ancient craft traditions –
from diverse cultures - associating eggs with fertility and the renewal of
life.
Generally we think
of an egg as a vessel containing the essential stuff allowing for a particular
life form to eventually emerge from the protective, nurturing shell. And indeed, forms do emerge from the eggs in
this exhibit, though certainly not in the same way that we predict and expect a
specific bird’s egg to produce a specific bird. I’m reminded that long before
the idea of biological evolution became part of our world view, ancient
philosophers such as Aristotle posed a causality dilemma when they mused,
“which came first, the bird or the egg?” So let’s just suppose for a moment
that in this context, the finished artworks are the birds, so to speak. One
could then perhaps view this exhibit as a delightfully playful metaphor for
creativity itself, whimsically resolving the aforementioned dilemma. So which
came first? Why, the egg of course - that ovoid vessel with the essential stuff
to birth a finished form.
For each artist in
this exhibit, surely it was the physical form of the egg - a pre-existing
“found object” of sorts - that initially nurtured (inspired) a creative process
giving rise to, or hatching, the birds we now behold. And unlike real
ostriches, these birds really do fly into all manner of realms. Some are
familiar and friendly, some strange, magical, or mystifying, but all of them
are enthralling.
Collectively, these
beguiling sculptures are a dazzling display of remarkably fecund imaginations,
realized with unimpeachable artisanship. And as objets d’dart, they’re no less
treasurable than jeweled Fabergés.
PHOTOS, from top: All
photos ©Feinknopf Photography, 2016.
1. The Leap of Life, digital sculpting, 3-D
printing, acrylic paint, by Josh Sutton / 2.
Day and Night, inks, lacquer,
clay, by Cathie Bleck / 3. Acqua Alta (Venice), oil paint and
silver, by Marianna Smith / 4. Get Your Head Out of the Sand, spray
paint and found objects, by Rondle West / 5.
Living Off the Land, encaustic, by
Christopher Rankin / 6. Marko Pollo, acrylic paint, silver foil,
glitter, by Amy Kollar Anderson
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