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Exploring the Human Body its Entanglements
FOUR NEW EXHIBITIONS AT THE DODD GALLERIES
By Alden DiCamillo arts@flagpole.com
The Lamar Dodd School of Art opened four new exhibitions
last week that each touch on narratives of the body and its
interface with the earth.
In the Lupin Gallery on the third floor of LDSOA is “The
2020 University of Georgia and Augusta University Student
Science and Medical Illustration Juried Exhibition.”
Viewers can see the process of the students work through
sketches and on-paper works tacked to the left entry wall of
the gallery, followed by displays of visceral work that range
from practice journal covers to text book inserts to delight
ful 3D printed objects. As one walks through
the gallery, they can see the mastery behind
medical curriculums’ illustrations—the visual
language that heightens leading knowledge
about the human body and its interfacing
with medical tools, epidemics, new medical
concepts and more. Each piece is titled with
the class prompt whence the image came:
“Tearing an Orange” by UGA artist Delaney
Maxwell bears the description “to depict
anatomically accurate hands in action, inter
acting with an external object.” “Link Between
Vascular Disorders and Alzheimer’s Disease”
by Keri Jone was created to “to metaphorically
depict the relationship of Alzheimer’s and vas
cular disorders discussed in an article featured
in Neurobiology of Aging,” featuring images of
veins and capillaries coloristically in dialogue
with text-based elements.
Viewers can continue considering the
internal working of their bodies if they walk
across the third floor hallway to the Suite
Gallery, with LDSOA’s current post-MFA pho
tography fellow Amiko Li’s show “The Purpose
of Disease.” A collection of photos combined
with sculpture items are in dialogue with a
video performance piece Playing Sick in which
differently-aged persons were asked to act out disease or
illness. The photos create a narrative about Li’s travel to
the U.S. and the experience of his disease. Some photos
are literal: an image of the artist lying on his stomach, his
back and arms covered in a pink rash. Other photos are
grotesque and uncanny: “A cut on your left hand, A cut on
your right hand” features two lab mice with human ear-like
extrusions. By exploring the purpose of disease, Li reaches
an expanded definition of disease, more than just a virus.
Li includes the idea of the immigrant in the U.S., since he
hails from Shanghai and has become increasingly aware of
linguistic, political and social boundaries that have created
distance and isolation as if one is diseased. The sculptural
elements include an anatomically correct plastic bust and
ear that one might find in a doctor’s office in Shanghai,
including Chinese symbols. Mirrors bear vinyl sentences
like “there is no pain that is specially prepared for you” or
short, poetic snippets that weave dream-like narratives
with comments about disease, adaptability and the human
body.
The mood shifts as one enters the Bridge Gallery where
the work of LDSOA MFA candidate Kelsey Wishik weaves a
narrative about non-human and human bodies in the show
“Elements of Myth: Kesey Wishik.” In the middle of the gal
lery, a trunk-like floor-to-ceiling sculpture of gathered wood
and sticks, winds up to anchor the show in organic material
built at a scale meant to create a confrontation that brings
the viewer into “shared intrigue.” Working with the ele
ments of earth, water, fire, air and ether, the show features
sculptures that combine steel, wood, paint and grasses to
construct myth within a space. Wishik understands myth
as a “device used to explain a phenomenal event.” She
goes on to say “...I’m considering the five elements as the
building blocks for cultural myths across the globe...as our
communities are interdependent upon the environment [s]
that cultivate us...” One can see fire-welded steel compo
nents, bolstering or embedded within organic material,
such as Wishik’s piece “Annamaya,” an object that is built
on the concept of yogic Koshas, or differently-dimensioned
existence. Pieces titled “Original Ancestor” (there are five of
them) are cleverly entangled steel emulations of microcos-
mic cells that make up complex systems. This philosophical
and scientific focus within Wishik’s work points to a spir
itual acknowledgement of the inner-working of material,
culture and earth elements: When the artist creates in com
munion with the Earth creation, myth opens up to reveal
presence and meaning beyond ourselves.
This spirituality through material exploration can also
be seen in the show “Golden Hour,” a collaboration between
printmaking and book arts graduate candidates Alex
McClay, Ciel Rodriguez and Mary Gordon. This show tells
a story about shadows and the bodies from which those
bodies extend as light rises and falls each day. Pieces like
“EarthShine” tell a celestial narrative: two suspended sheets
of abaca paper, one whole and golden in hue behind the
other, a dark blue sheet created through cyanotype process
ing. The dark blue sheet has a hole taken from the middle
to create a play of light and dark to represent the sun and
moon. “Earthshine” is the phenomena of the
sun’s light reflecting off of Earth and onto the
unlit parts of the moon. This piece is in dialog
with her similarly constructed piece “You and
Me,” which represents the story of herself and
a partner who passed away.
Each piece is built from paper materials
that are traditionally flat and considered
two-dimensional, with added sculptural ele
ments to bring the work into two and a half
dimensions that play on dualities of light/
shadow, internal/external. Mary Gordon’s
piece “Lunarai” is 365 small leaves or pet
als made of wire loops and abaca paper.
Mimicking the pods of the Lunaria plant, the
small structures are interspersed along the far
left wall, bringing one into a moment of clus
tering and spreading out, similar to murmu-
ration in flocks on birds. Many of the leaves
have small words embedded in them—short
thoughts from each of the artists, creating an
internal dialog between secret thoughts and
hoped-for things.
Alex McClay’s two-channel video perfor
mance Hide and Seek, anchors the work in
the back of the gallery. On the left side of the
screen, Alex dances in the sun wearing a body
suit of linked circles made from emergency blanket mate
rial. She shimmers and flares as the sun reflects off each
circle, transforming her body into a product of earthshine.
As she glints and gleams, she emerges and submerges back
into the fielded landscape in which she dances. On the right
side of the screen, Alex performs a similar dance in the
same suit, but inside one of the studio spaces at the Dodd
around golden hour, when the sun streams into building
and homes. Her body is both consumed by and emerging
from the harsh shadows created by the sun, and her body
extends through light the shiny material reflects the sun.
These current exhibitions are currently on view through
Friday, Mar. 27. Gallery hours for the Lamar Dodd School
of Art are Mondays-Fridays, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. ©
Kelsey Wishik
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The Ordeal
MARCH 11, 2020 | FLAGPOLE.COM H