Review / Informed Opinions

 

April Issue 1999

 

Perceptions of Reality: Sliding Scale

Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, NC

A Review

 

by Amy Funderburk

 

Currently on display at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, NC, is an exhibit featuring work by ten artists who make the viewer feel like they have stumbled into Alice in Wonderland. Sliding Scale is an exhibit of both undersized and oversized artwork, proving that scale affects our perceptions of reality. Viewers may be familiar with this concept, utilized by artists including Georgia O'Keefe and Claes Oldenburg, but there is a fresh contemporary approach to the theme here. We go from feeling as small as a mouse in a garbage heap to as large as a giant looking at real "human-sized" mice. The exhibit will bring out the child in you.

 

Michelle Segre of New York, NY, is obviously concerned with texture and decay as well as scale in her Detritus Cumulus. This large scale installation of scattered garbage is made of Hydrocal, foam, beeswax, papier mache, and acrylic. Bones, orange peel, and bread are created with incredible attention to textured detail. From the powdery brown marrow at the ends of the bones, to the mold beginning to form on the pitted bread, Segre blows up the commonplace and literally disposable to make us notice its textures and forms.

 

Maria Fernadna Cardoso's humorous video Cardoso Flea Circus runs continuously in the gallery. Much of the viewer's perceptions are regulated by the camera angles, points of view, lights, captions, music, and sound effects. Cardoso, of Sydney, Australia, places the fleas where she wants them with tweezers and holds them in place with wires to create the illusion of circus performers. The sword fight scene, complete with the expected sound effects, is my favorite "act." The last scene, "Feeding the Fleas," shows the fleas feeding from the artist's arm, and introduces a slightly darker undercurrent that also runs through other artist's work in the show.

Bill Scanga of New York City uses dark humor in his thought provoking mixed media works. In his Zoo, real mice live in an inset tank made to look like an old-fashioned zoo environment, watched by three taxidermied mice outside on the gallery floor. The latter mice come complete with miniature bench, bag of pop corn, and full trash can. This work is full of varied perceptions, for the tiny objects force us to realize that the mice are human sized, while we have suddenly become giant onlookers.

 

The things of childhood - magic carpets, dreams, blanket forts, tea parties, and fairy tales - are fodder for Laura Whipple's work. Whipple, of Hollywood, CA, creates strong psychological works that go much deeper than the children's storybook feeling you may get at first glance. The 11" tall Night Sweat is made from a glass vase, funnel, miniature beds, and cloth. The larger bed is at an angle in the top part of the funnel, while two little beds have dripped out the bottom. One tiny bed is in the process of dripping, creating an incredible visual tension. This work challenges definitions of solid vs. liquid as well as scale. An untitled work is comprised of a small bed hung high in the gallery. A series of four white sheets are knotted together, cascading to almost reach the gallery floor. To exploit the foreshortened view, the artist actually uses a cloth the size of a handkerchief for the top "sheet." They get larger until the fourth cloth is indeed the size of a small sheet. This play on perspective is not initially noticeable due to the small scale bed as well as the provoked height. A combination of images from Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty come to mind, followed by something deeper, darker, and more psychological, for the sheets are a method of escape.

 

Michael Ashkin of New York, NY, creates mixed media tabletop models of desolate, apocalyptic landscapes. There is a feeling of the almost abstract, save for the sinking tractor trailer here and the abandoned train car there. As one looks down on these aerial views, one feels like some omnipotent being looking down on destruction.

 

The miniature work of Martha Bush, Oakland, CA, is superbly crafted. Several of her works are plays on words, including the 3 1/4" Lawn Chair, made of grass and aluminum. Bush's other works here are all untitled. One work is a delicate glove shape cut out of one end of a broken rubber band. A miniature bed is created from a cracker, epoxy and wire. A paper cup becomes the support for a bridge made of a stir stick and wire. Bush's works are deceptively simple, surprisingly elegant, and impressively executed.

 

In his small paintings of predominantly light grays, Tom LaDuke of Santa Ana, CA, zooms in on areas so closely they become quite abstract. His super-real three-dimensional works are reminiscent of special effects movie props or model making with incredible attention to detail. My favorite of his works combines the sculptural and two-dimensional elements. We Could Hear Our Names features a super-real high voltage tower model with suspended lines running to a small painting. The 2-D element shows the top part of the next tower, painted in very light grays. The result is an illusion of great depth, and plays with the perception of 3-D against 2-D.

Another artist's work reminiscent of movie sets are the photographs of Miles Coolidge, Los Angeles, CA. At first the viewer may wonder why these works are included in the show. They seem to be photos of normal buildings on average streets. On closer inspection, one realizes that there are certain visual clues; the curbs and other things seem just a little large for the supposedly full sized buildings. The photographs are of Safetyville, a one-third scale town built on the outskirts of Sacramento, CA, for the purpose of child road safety instruction. To heighten the illusion, Coolidge uses a low point of view.

 

One of my favorite works in the show is by Chris Burden (Topanga, CA). His Scale Model of the Solar System takes the idea of scale beyond the gallery walls and into the nearby community. A 13" diameter sun hangs in the gallery, with stainless steel ball bearings in Plexiglas boxes representing each planet. Each planet is scaled-down accordingly and placed the correct distance away from the sun, with Pluto approximately one mile away. As a result, Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars are all positioned inside SECCA, and Jupiter is sited at the front gate. The remaining outer planets are installed in four nearby locations. A map is available, allowing the viewer to go on a treasure hunt.

 

Keith Edmier of New York City contributes his just-oversized Sunflower, acrylic and polymer, and the smaller Periwinkle Blue, acrylic and pollen, to the exhibit. The sunflower should be of special interest to younger viewers. Since the periwinkle is known for hallucinogenic properties, one thinks again of Alice's adventures.

 

While I was in the gallery, two groups of children came in, viewing the show with obvious delight. An exhibit for all ages, younger viewers can appreciate the obvious exaggeration of scale both large and small, while adults can look for the deeper meanings just beneath the surfaces of the works. Everyone can come away with a fresh appreciation for the possibilities of the world around them, aware that something can be as big or as small as you make it. Be sure to look through the binoculars and telescope provided, taking the scale beyond even the artist's intentions.

 

While at SECCA, don't miss Charlotte, NC artist Ce Scott's exhibit Ce Scott: A Dangerous Woman. In this new body of work, Scott makes feminist and racial statements by juxtaposing the soft and woven against the hard, sharp and metallic. The well-crafted works are often disturbing and always thought-provoking. In some works she utilizes clever double meanings within her materials. All the works are derived from her original poetry and dreams. Also on display is the exhibit Accounts Southeast: Transience, presenting the works of five Latin American artists now living in the US.

 

All three shows are currently on display through May 30. SECCA is located at 750 Marguerite Drive off Reynolda Road, in Winston-Salem, NC. Museum hours are 10am to 5pm, Tue.-Sat., and 2pm-5pm on Sun. The Museum is closed on Mon. Admission is $3 for adults and $2 for seniors and students. Children under twelve and SECCA members are admitted free. For more information contact SECCA at (336)725-1904.

 

Amy Funderburk is an artist, teacher, writer, art critic, and exhibitions coordinator living in Winston-Salem, NC. She is also a Board Member of Associated Artists of Winston-Salem."

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