Dreambodies is a duo exhibition of artists Lissa Robinson and Suzanne Franks. The works by these two artists were created independently from each other and placed together under the same title for the exhibition at Struts Gallery. Robinson’s portion of Dreambodies is titled Clotted Bodies & other Ghostly Matters. In this work Robinson explores the exaggeration of beauty to the point of abstraction. Robinson draws her interest from fairy tales and film, in which benign objects (rose petals, apples, lips) are beautified and exaggerated until “it becomes imbued with dark forces like death, violence and sexual obsession.” In numerous stories such as The Red Shoes and The Wizard of Oz, shoes have been read as bodily or psychic appendages of the wearer, reflecting the personal tastes of the individual as well as acting as a record of travel. The shoe has a cultural history as being an intimate and magical object. The quality of velvet both reflects light and absorbs it, exaggerating the intimacy and magical powers.
The second artist showing in Dreambodies also uses material to sensualize an object. In Dreambodies, Suzanne Franks exhibited her work titled Glimmer. Like Robinson, Franks fetishizes the object; instead of velvet, Franks uses grommets cover the surface of a seven foot rocket-ship sculpture. From a distance the rocket-ship appears to be solid in its construction, however, as the viewer approaches the work the metal armor becomes visually lighter. Upon close inspection the grommets give the rocketship an appearance of being made out of lace. A pair of gravity boots, (rubber boots pop-riveted with washers) accompany the rocketship sculpture.
suzanne@cadvision.com
ljrobins@cadvision.com