Fractured Reflections from Bygone Days

Chomp (2011) by Christopher Murphy

Do you ever look back at your youthful days and shudder with embarrassment at the stupid things you did? Or recoil with chagrin at the awkward situations in which you got involved? When your mom or an elderly aunt opens up her photo album from the days of your childhood, does it feel like they are about to reveal conclusive evidence of your undeniable folly? That's the type of vibe that I get from Christopher Murphy's exhibit "Forget That You Were Young" showing at the Lora Schlesinger Gallery in Bergamot Station.

These paintings capture life's absurdities, moments that the subject might prefer letting slip away into the fog of distant memory. After all, would we really want that time we took a hammer to a beehive to be documented for future mockery? Or how about that time you botched an attempt for the "Coolest Dive Ever" and the photo snapped just as you realized it wasn't going as planned? Or just being wildly inappropriately dressed for the situation?

Future Vegetarian (2011) by Christopher Murphy

Yet, there is a nostalgia to these images. They may be depicting times and situations that we wish didn't happen, but, since they did, are they really better off forgotten? Aren't the humiliating moments of our lives part of that which built our character?

Light from Behind the Screen

For Milton (2011) by Carrie Seid

The World But Seems to Be

(By Fakhruddin 'Iraqi)

The world but seems to be

yet is nothing more

than a line drawn

between light and shadow.

Decipher the message

of this dream-script

and learn to distinguish time

from Eternity.

The Lora Schlesinger Gallery is currently showing an exhibition of Carrie Seid's artwork, entitled "Animal and Mineral". The works are somewhere between paintings and sculptures. In essence, they are aluminum boxes with one side left open. Over this opening, a silk screen is stretched and treated for translucency. Within the box, divisions and compartments are defined with aluminum sectionals.

The aluminum box is hung like a picture, with the silk side facing the viewer. As light hits the work, the silk is revealed like a typical abstract painting. However, because of its translucency, the light passes through to reveal the structural elements beneath the silk surface and reflect off the polished metal. This reflection is enhanced by the application of mylar within the box. The end result is that there appears to be an inner luminosity within the box that acts as a "back lighting" to the silk screen.

It's a compelling exhibit. The play of light and shadow over and beneath the flat silk screen creates an enthralling sense of translucent space. It's a dynamic effect, changing with the movements of the viewer or the positioning of the light sources. And it is this quality of dynamism that gives the show its title. When you stand still and look at these works, there is a orderly and petrified feel to the image upon the screen, like a gemstone or a piece of amber. But when you view it while moving, the illuminated curves and shadowy contours rotate and flow like a living, biomorphic form.


Bittersweet (2009) by Carrie Seid


These ambiguities of animal or mineral, shadow or light, underneath or on the surface, are the heart of this aesthetic conflict. To get all artsy, these works contain an inherent Apollonian/Dionysian dialectic.