I shuffled off to Buffalo on Friday to hear an artist talk by Erin Finley that coincided with the opening of her exhibition at Hallwalls. The show consists of “knockout drawings” featuring “coyly transgressive subjects,” to borrow curator John Massier’s wording. He described the act of seeing her work in person during a studio visit as startling, because reproductions couldn’t do them justice. One could imagine that he was referring to the teeny narratives surrounding the main action, which are rendered intricately with a cartographer’s pen. Or maybe he was thinking of the glint of light hitting a sparkly baby Jesus atop Marlon Brando’s head or on a glittering Louis Vuitton sandal in a self-portrait of the artist with maxipad wings exposed.

What I recall most vividly from visiting Finley’s Calgary studio and later, her present Toronto studio, was the denseness of imagery cluttering the walls. Early 80s Madonna hung alongside an oversized colouring book picture of Alice in Wonderland and across from a leaflet for the theatre production of Legally Blonde that Finley picked up while exhibiting at CBGBs. It was as if she had gorged on popular culture and hurled onto the wall, where her entire visual schemata was seeping into the works created below. Thus, it was fitting that she began her artist talk with an overview of images that inform her current work, which ranged from Miley Cyrus with her pants around her ankles to documentation of torture in Guantánamo Bay.
The content of her irreverent drawings makes them au courant, yet they possess a timeless quality by virtue of their style. There are several artists that come to mind whose purposeful disregard for drawing conventions makes them easily confused for one another; this aesthetic, however suited to quirky subject matter, runs the risk of a pressing expiration date. Finley’s deftly drawn and equally imaginative works stand in contrast. It doesn’t hurt that she inserts references to art history, like Borromini’s architecture, Mannerist proportions, and Greco-Roman stories, situating her work firmly in the realm of art and preventing it from being confused with children’s book illustrations like the work of some of her artist contemporaries.


Click images to enlarge; courtesy of the artist:
Portrait of the artist in Louis Vuitton and maxi pad with wings / black and metallic ink on paper / 2011
Portrait of the artist as a suicide bomber / ink on paper / 2010
Simon + Jimmy / Chalk, pencil, cosmetic blush, oil paint on paper / 2007
No comments:
Post a Comment