Molly Larkey

Signs for a Pragmatic Utopia #3

2014

Linda King Ferguson describes her "Equivalence Series" as social bodies; a re-thinking of Modernist figurative abstraction. They are a discursive formal and reductive language. As fi...

"Material Pleasures: Artemisia", acrylic on linen, dyes on rayon; woven, 53" x 77", 1993. This contemporary abstract mixed media tapestry was done by California-based American fib...

Imagine the swelling sea in an electric storm—fútbol/soccer fans in a packed stadium at night, their thunderous roars in the moments leading up to kickoff, their focus on one player on the field, the tension in the crowd increasing exponentially in contrast to the calm confidence of an expert, the distortion of space and time as she moves her foot ever closer to the ball—The Creation of Adam—a growing...

Hand-signed and dated verso (on the back)

“Vestiges'' acts as a relic that evokes a nostalgic reminder of a life that once was. The series is deeply associative, attuned to our own sense of place and personal history through an aesthetic of transience, intimacy, and sentiment. The physical properties of “Vestiges” invite a closer look. Kiegel replaces the traditional canvas with a lightweight aerospace structural material that mimics the architecture of a honeycomb. A lateral view of its deep rigid hexagonal structure makes it appear as an abandoned, rusted piece of metal—only allowing its full depth to be seen from a direct view, like a synthetic silk veil...

This painting by Linda King Ferguson is part of her equivalence series, which began as a feminist project; works that subvert the historically male gaze and a material language speaking of gendered concerns. While typically, King Ferguson paints both sides of the canvas and cuts a flap on the the frontside to reveal the color of the back of the canvas, she unexpectedly does the opposite here. The painting is hung from the "frontside" of the canvas, revealing to us the raw edges of her linen canvas, stapled to the stretchers. Two oblong shapes of pink and red dominate the center of the painting. A thin semioval cut has been made inside of both of these shapes. Her color choices first came from Helen Molesworth’s essay, Painting With Ambivalence, published in WACK! Art of the Feminist Revolution. The Essay includes a large reproduction of Mary Heilmann’s 1979 painting...