Alumnus Linda King-Ferguson @ White Columns
White Columns Online ‘Stomach Acid Reflux’ curated by Ellie Rines
Stomach Acid Reflux, an online inventory that deals with the human body in a way that is somehow both grotesque and formally elegant.
Traditional themes–still life, formal abstraction–and traditional composition–symmetry, etc…– i.e. artistic practice of control is confounded by dysfunction and absurdity. Fake vomit on a scale, ketchup packets’ portrait, tits with nips carved out, tissuebox architecture, spray foam can ejaculation, dairy still life– all direct or subliminal hints to the disgusting bodily fluids resulting from the things we love and hate – sex, bodies, food. Everyday encounters, formalities, objects and commodities become subject to ridicule and admiration, sublimation and disgrace. Juxtapositions ferment and become putrid.
Sophia S Narett painstakingly needlepoints elaborate scenes from fantasy and illusion. In Something Went Wrong, orgies are juxtaposed to a series of women aimlessly wandering in ball gowns, a dead naked women lying on a fish tank. The composition is structured around crumbling architecture, barbed wire and a flank of female figures observing in confusion, disgust and ridicule.
Kurt Treeby knits an architectural model of Prentice Women’s Hospital then turns it into what feels like a beer coozy for a tissue box.
Linda King Ferguson’s surgical cuts yield formal absences. Though reminiscent of Lygia Clark or Polly Apfelbaum, the painting counteracts the joy of the colors with a sloughing off.
Diana Kingsley ’s dairy still life in a pink background. Entitling the work Well-rounded Wives evokes the low-level despair and boredom beneath the surface of a kitchen. Lactose overload.
Jennifer Sullivan features faux glitter vomit on a painted weight scale. Theatrical, humorous and a bit sinister. From a “revenge body” series — the tableau lives up to the title.
Amy J Kligman ketchup packet still life. Curiously bulbous. Employing immense detail similar to the way Narrett does but much more laconic.
Robert Rhee in Coral uses a spray foam can to create a bizarre yellow foam shape. Rhee discusses “rubber necking” in his artist statement. This could have been another title for my online selection of works — looking at something gross and candid out of habit and curiosity.
Participating artists include:
Linda King Ferguson
Diana Kingsley
Amy J Kligman
Sophia S Narrett
Robert Rhee
Jennifer Sullivan
Kurt Treeby
Ellie Rines is founder of 56 Henry gallery and a director of Ceysson & Bénétière.
For more information: registry.whitecolumns.org
featured image: Linda King Ferguson
Equivalence 60, 2016
Acrylic and stain
28 x 28 inches
Courtesy of the artist
