{"id":36237,"date":"2017-03-03T07:59:23","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T13:59:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=36237"},"modified":"2018-09-13T14:06:10","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T20:06:10","slug":"a-love-letter-from-growth-to-decay-naomi-marine-at-finch-lane-gallery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/a-love-letter-from-growth-to-decay-naomi-marine-at-finch-lane-gallery\/","title":{"rendered":"A Love Letter From Growth to Decay: Naomi Marine at Finch Lane Gallery"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you reached into your refrigerator and pulled out a carton of plump strawberries, only to find they\u2019re covered in fuzzy, circular patches of fungus, you\u2019d grimace and throw them away, right? You\u2019d hardly examine the tiny, flowering patterns of decay and growth. But fascination with such microscopic details, which show how plush organic material changes over time, is one element that makes Naomie Marine\u2019s drawings and soft sculptures alluring. Marine\u2019s exhibit\u00a0all things are waiting here<\/em>, at Finch Lane Gallery through April 14, provides a detailed look at the beautiful and grotesque cycles that define the transient organic world, including our own bodies.<\/p>\n

Many of the pieces in\u00a0all things are waiting here<\/em>\u00a0are detailed ink drawings, series of curving parallel lines created with an impossibly fine-tipped pen. The drawing \u201cwould you know me\u201d is made of thin black lines, unfolding in an upward, undulating pattern. On close inspection, a viewer sees what might be the edges of textured wood covered in moss or algae. From these curved shapes drift small points of ink, which look like seeds or dandelion fuzz caught in a breeze. This piece, as well as the similar \u201ceclipsing of the will,\u201d communicates pulsing growth on a miniature scale.<\/p>\n

The namesake of the show, \u201call things are waiting here\u201d is made with the same obsessive and intimate pen technique. This piece is a flowing series of marks that undulate like lumpy infinity symbols. Rather than wood and blooming algae, however, the piece resembles intertwined tresses of hair or silky skeins of yarn. These shapes and textures are familiar, but their suspended, pulsing movement against a stark white background is too magical to look like something you could stumble onto in a forest or on the slide of a microscope. Pieces like these show the constant processes that take place in our bodies and around us, but because they are singled out and framed, make the audience take notice of how wondrous they are.<\/p>\n

Marine\u2019s two-dimensional pieces relate changes that occur constantly at a cellular or otherwise invisible level, which ultimately fuel the major aging that we see in our own bodies at a macro level. She says, \u201cTaking a generally microscopic view, I focus on these points of transformation or mutation to better understand the way cycles of growth shape the experience of time. Time ravages and marks our bodies \u2026 marching us closer to the abject reality of our mortal flesh.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marine deals more explicitly with the draw and repulsion of human flesh in her soft sculptures. Mounted on the gallery walls or sitting on top of pedestals, these soft, flesh-tone assemblages are made of pink, red, white, and brown fabrics, sewn into tubular shapes and connected in pulsing compositions similar to her drawings. Each of Marine\u2019s sculptures includes soft textures that range from satin to velvet, and call out to be stroked. However, in \u201cbending the will\u201d and \u201cwading through days\u201d the inviting soft fabric is offset by stiff wiry threads that poke upward at odd angles and include menacing white fabric horns and odd patches of dark brown fur.<\/p>\n

Spotlighted on a pedestal in the middle of the gallery floor is \u201cbending the will.\u201d In the Greek myth of Aphrodite\u2019s birth, Zeus castrated his father Uranus and tossed the severed genitals into the ocean. From the splash of bloody foam, Aphrodite rose in all her delicate feminine beauty. Marine\u2019s fleshy object, on a pedestal that rises from the center of the gallery, contains a similar contradiction as the one articulated in this myth: body parts most responsible for generation are repulsive and beautiful, brutal and delicate. Marine says, \u201cThe combinations of seductive and grotesque imagery created within the work hint at the pleasure and revulsion I find in our corporeality.\u201d<\/p>\n

These surreal sculptures, which echo the frank female sexuality of canonized sculptures like M\u00e9ret Oppenheim\u2019s\u201cFur Breakfast\u201d(1936), are highlights of the show. They echo the organic and biological themes in Marine\u2019s tiny pen drawings, but are executed at a larger, exaggerated scale in the immediate vicinity of viewers. As a result of the sculptures\u2019 confrontational size and position, viewers must think about the constant growth and decay within themselves.<\/p>\n

Marine says, \u201cIn some representations [the body] is fallible and beset by disease and disorder. In other manifestations it is flush with life or suggestive of intimacy.\u201d As an artist, Marine creates work that reveals the infinite links between opposing psychological forces and the micro\/macro scales of life. In doing so, she creates a body of work that communicates her themes, too, on many levels.<\/p>\n

all things are waiting here<\/em>, sculptures and 2D work by Naomi Marine,\u00a0Finch Lane Gallery<\/a>, Salt Lake City, until April 14.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you reached into your refrigerator and pulled out a carton of plump strawberries, only to find they\u2019re covered in fuzzy, circular patches of fungus, you\u2019d grimace and throw them away, right? You\u2019d hardly examine the tiny, flowering patterns of decay and growth. But fascination with such microscopic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1523,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 15:03:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1523"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36238,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36237\/revisions\/36238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}