Welcome to "Between"
| Opening: | March 8, 2007, 5:00pm |
| Dates: | March 9 - May 31, 2007 |
| Place: |  Grenadian by rex resorts |
between
The senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch and smell are discrete entities--or are they? Emotions are generally understood as something entirely separate from matter, but could there be another way of looking at human experience? We are so accustomed to thinking in categories--culture and nature, life and death, human and non-human-that we sometimes fail to see what lies in between. It is too easy to overlook the fluid nature of matter itself.
Hundreds of years ago, Mayan poets spoke of the kinship between plant and human, calling tree sap "the green blood of my sister." This blurring of the fixed categories of the material world upsets our contemporary sensibilities and scientific taxonomies. But these poets exemplify the insight that what exists in between is often stronger and more compelling than that which is required to remain obediently in its own place.
In our increasingly objectified world, artists have the task of illuminating connections that we might not otherwise see. At first glance the work of the four artists in between is very different; we see a range of different media and styles; two artists work with representational forms, and two with abstraction. Yet something that these works share is the artists' willingness to explore the connections and energies that lie between the fixed categories we take for granted.
Oliver Benoit's abstractions cross the border of emotion-feeling and perception-seeing; we feel through our eyes as we fall into the shapes on the canvas, and in this way we are able to perceive the images both intellectually and tactilely. Rene Froehlich's sculptures explore the nature of materiality, also allowing the viewer intellectually to experience the tactility of the work. At the same time, the range of materials utilized emphasize their contingency, and enable matter to come together in unexpected ways. Asher Mains' images of musicians employ bold brushstrokes and framing to increase the sense of the intensity of the players' experience. In this way we are able to enter the musical world of sound through the sense of sight. Susan Mains' verdant world bursts forth, engaging our senses with a sensuality of colour and movement; we seem to be smelling the colours of Mains' lavish images, reminded that, as organic matter, plants and flowers are always in a state of becoming.
Deborah Root