Creature Comforts
By Jordan Kroll
Upon entering the show “Creature Comforts” at Anya Tish Gallery, fluorescent figurines, vibrant cartoon-like paintings, and an alarmingly lifelike statue of a deer covered in what appears to be bubblegum pink ice cream meet viewers head on.
Houston-based artist Jennifer Nuttall curated the show, which opened July 9 as a part of ArtHouston 2010. Nuttall felt that ArtHouston would be a great opportunity to veer away from a more traditional body of work and, instead, focus on experimental pieces that “transcend [their] own frames” and activate viewers’ imaginations even after they’ve left the gallery.
“I wanted to explore both the comfortable and dark sides of storytelling and mythology,” Nuttall said, describing her vision for the exhibit.
In addition to curating the exhibit, Nuttall showed four of her own pieces. Although they appear to be cute drawings on wood paneling, one of the exhibit’s clear underlying themes reminds us that not everything is as it seems. Nutall actually makes her work entirely of different kinds of tape and a sticky black ink that she says gives each piece “a dirty feel.”
Jennifer Nuttall
Removal and Detention 2010
All of the pieces in the show are part of Nuttall’s Wretched Little World series. The Wretched Little World is a place with no adults and no morals, where two armies of children are constantly at war. Born in England, Nutall relies heavily on the concepts of immigration and national identity to help shape her work. She also frequently alludes to personal experiences, such as her deportation from the U.S. in 2008. This is most apparent in the three Homeland Security pieces that depict her wretched little children with giant grins using military weapons to ward off the smaller, frowning characters that dare enter their playground.
Discovered by Nutall on the photo sharing website Flickr, painter Mindy Kober also cites “politics, nationalism, and identity” as a few of her many influences. Working primarily with gouache paint on paper, Kober meticulously applies numerous layers to each piece so the final product shows no trace of the artist’s hand, giving it a cartoon-like quality. At first glance Kober’s work appears as playful and fun as the cartoons it resembles, but upon closer examination, it becomes apparent that Kober’s subject matter is far darker, at times verging on violent.
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Bitter Sweet consists of two duck decoys covered in what looks like chocolate and sprinkles, sticking their beaks in a dark liquid. Because of its placement on the floor, the most powerful image this piece conjures up is undoubtedly the ongoing disaster in the Gulf, particularly the effects the oil is having on area’s wildlife. A few feet away from the ducks is Scream, a deer that looks like he accidentally wandered into the gallery, dripping with ice cream.
.A prominent theme in Wood’s work proposes the idea that you can always have too much of a good thing. Wood’s pieces suggest that whether it’s something as harmless and easy to clean up as ice cream or something as damaging and long lasting as an oil spill, we need to be cautious and aware of the effects we have on our surroundings.
Another artist who utilizes more traditional methods, but whose work is just as rich with narrative, is Dawn Black. Black works with gouache, ink, and watercolor on paper to create haunting figures that seem completely out of context. She selects important images from the media and places them in a new setting often masking their faces. The surplus of negative space contributes to the juxtaposition between the various characters in each piece.
.In We Come in Peace, for example, the vast emptiness between the woman in the midst of undress in the foreground and the tiny alien lurking in the back corner tells an eerie, voyeuristic tale that might not exist if these characters existed in a specified setting. The eye-catching blank spaces in each of Black’s pieces not only allow, but encourage viewers to write their own narratives for these delicate, yet powerful characters.
The final artist featured in Creature Comforts, ceramicist Wesley Harvey, presents his pieces on pedestals in the center of the gallery. However the works look as if they might feel more at home in someone’s grandmother’s house. The figurines were all found in thrift stores then remade in porcelain. By recreating other people’s junk, Harvey breathes new life into objects that already have rich histories. He paints the pieces and decorates them with other media to transform the cute into something a little more ominous.
Arrangement also plays a large role in the contradiction between kitsch and menacing in these pieces. And all the Yellow Bunnies… for example, consists of a large golden girl in the middle of at least twenty bunny figurines. On their own, the little bunnies are innocent, but when they’re surrounding the girl in such a great quantity, they adopt a more threatening aura.
All of the artists in Creature Comforts explore the contrast between what seems to be and what is while highlighting the paradox of youthful innocence and corruption simultaneously in the same piece. According to Nutall, art should “do more than make you feel good inside.” She hopes this show will challenge and inspire viewers, leaving them with more questions than answers.
The exhibit is on display until August 7 at Anya Tish Gallery, located at 4411 Montrose Blvd.
Harvey Wesley And all are yellow bunnies 2010
.Kober’s depiction of violence is illustrated best in the two works: Not Another Kitten Painting and Aftermath. Both paintings feature oversized domesticated animals fighting U.S. Civil War soldiers. “There is a balance of [the] cute and terrifying, and a sense of uneasiness with men trying to conquer household pets,” said Kober of the paintings.
Ann Wood, who has two pieces in the show, often explores the ideas of beauty and decay through her three-dimensional work, according to Nutall. Wood uses animal decoys that she covers with various materials, such as foam, rubber or polyurethane, to create thought-provoking and, in the instance of the piece Bitter Sweet, jarring sculptures
Ann Wood, Scream 2010
