Art Review : Quoddy Tides, Eastport, ME Elizabeth Ostrander, “Sanctuary,” Eastport Gallery August 19 to September 1 by Nicols Fox The woman has antlers. They rise from her tidy skull so neatly and naturally that they feel perfectly appropriate. “Why don’t I have antlers?” she might make you wonder. On these rough, bony protrusions birds roost. There is another bird on her shoulder. Her smooth face shows not a flicker of awareness or discomfort with these visitors. Instead, she gazes out through eyes squinted not for protection, but to sharpen the focus. She searches the distance for something. What? Some lost creature who needs her protection? Some threat to her domain? We’ll never know. As is much of the work of Elizabeth Ostrander, she is bathed in mystery. We can look at her and endow her with our own questions: our concerns. Beneath her armless figure, small votive candles flicker in flower-like cups of rough, white clay. Is she to be worshipped? Or do the small lights, which begin to feel as appropriate as her antlers, simply endow her with the respect she deserves, this woodland figure, at one with her environment--a part of it, not apart from it--a creature we already seem to know. In “Woodland Sanctuary,” which is the figure’s name, we are seeing the essence of Ostrander’s work. She is a mature artist now, at the peak of her career, where everything she has loved and feared and wondered about has come together in her sculpture. She is an artist of the known and the unknown, of the natural and the unnatural world, of reality and mystery. Her subjects are recognizable aspects of the living world: flowers; leaves; “bunnies,” as she likes to call them; animals that are at once real and fantastical: figures of mystery and perhaps of wonder, and women--always women, their faces smooth and enigmatic: long noses; full, sometimes pouting mouths; eyes never fully open, for open eyes give the secrets away. Ostrander endows women with the ability--the gift, perhaps--of bringing together the natural and the spiritual. Or, perhaps of recognizing that they can not be separated, for often their bodies have altars carved into them. Here sit small, often ordinary objects that have been endowed with meaning; a shell, a pebble, a piece of glass. Offerings? Of course. But we can decide for ourselves exactly to what--or to whom. Certainly the goal is to bring together the natural and the spiritual--or to recognize that they cannot be, or should not be separated. She is granting respect to that eternal and universal unity that she fears--that she knows is endangered. The prayerful candles flicker--artificially(they are tiny and battery operated, making the viewer long for the smell and the drip of wax. Is this intrusion of the technological an error or a nod to the reality of efficiency’s power?). She has named this exhibition “Sanctuary.” But the word implies safety and there is never--even in the most benign expressions of her artistic vision--anything remotely safe about her work. Even her “Bunny” rises above that too cute appellation to become solemn, wise, questioning and always enigmatic. To be amidst her creatures is to be invited into her personal dream room of an imagined world that is sometimes inspiring, sometimes reassuring, sometimes very close to worshipful, evocative of something familiar, something known and yet unknown, something frightening in the questions it raises.. My personal definition of integrity is a lack of distance between what you say and what you do. To see this exhibition is to understand the word and meaning in the context of the visual arts, unique, and indivisible thing; she is her work and her work is Elizabeth Ostrander. If she leaves us with unanswered questions, we know enough to be grateful. The exhibition at the Eastport Gallery runs until September 1. Nicols Fox
Posted on: Sat, 24 Aug 2013 04:46:54 +0000
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