There are over 3,000 schools of thought on ikebana and, as a formal strategy for making sculpture, we like these: spontaneity, simplicity, suggestiveness and respect for the materials’ natural characteristics. It is hard to know where to locate Jessica’s ten eye-popping photographs amid the tradition of sculpture and still life, and that is precisely what makes them so compelling. In them, found and natural objects are combined to resemble careful and strange landscape motifs, while others emanate a charged corporality. Familiar elements are at once an anchor and a detour.
For example, in stump two typical round reed baskets hint at the cornucopia of still life, however, next to a bulbous tree stump, they become foreign since the scale swings between rustic landscape and certain below the belt male anatomy, leading one down all sorts of metaphorical roads. Appearing highly symbolic and irreverent, the deceptively simple arrangements float in solid fields of candy pink, acrid blue or rosy magenta, further complicating the desire to locate or extract specific meaning. The effect feels wrong, and it’s all right.
by Christie Frields
call japan! was a two-person show with artist Christie Frields at the Glendale Community College Gallery in 2006.