Dancing Through Life

Dancing Through Life

Two points on two calendars: Elzbieta Middel is celebrating the tenth anniversary of her gallery. And this exhibition opens on the birthday of the artist. The intersecting of these events in the personal timelines of galerist and artist spurred a series of work rendering the passage of time. What came as a surprise in the unfolding of these images was the tenderness evoked in the simple figures.

An abiding joy in celebrating this lifetime seemed best expressed by dance: from the enchantment of a young ballerina, to the solo dance of the young woman, through the partnered clutch, and ultimately reaching a high-spirited old age. The unframed work presents a moment glimpsed between having and losing, being and transformation. Focusing on the transformative process of aging, the child becomes a woman and then mother to her own child. The passage of time of course continues the process to leave the woman aged by the decades, in a sense losing those qualities which had defined womanhood.

A thematic arc of nurturing begins with a child spoon-fed by the mother, passes through to the the little girls learning and taking on the roles of caring, providing, and serving. Along the way there are the points of personal attention as a man proffers a tender morsel to his date. The time of male solicitude is short and followed by the company and comfort of friendship and tea. That this all ends with the reduction to nursing and medication is shown with an overwhelming spatial and emotional isolation.

Although this work falls outside the realm of traditional form, it is the tradition of the triptych upon which many of these drawings forge their meaning. The triptych has a force and power imbued with meaning from centuries of use. Employed by religious art, the very character of the form holds a set of spiritual demands and responses. Here the triptych is used for the re-iteration of the passage of time. First we view the young child with the baby doll. Then well prepared, we see the pregnant mother with teddy-bear- clutching child who also will learn to care and tend. Finally, we have the end of the cycle, the elder with hat in hand with only self to look after.

These pieces ripple and undulate. They might be thought of as pages on a calendar chronicling daily activities and the passage of time. There is a freedom in focusing on the immediate, a liberation from preciousness which comes from abandoning the frame. The loose, swingy lines and attenuated forms reaching and stretching out to every corner bring amusement or consternation, energy or agitation. There is nothing smooth or orderly about them. Bumpy, lumpy, wiggly and squiggly, these drawings assert themselves just as quickly as they threaten to disappear. Unframed, irregular areas of chalky gesso feel like fresco fragments. Charcoal, conté and pastels render the most tenuous of forms. This is a visual presence which is like a stain, a mere visual echo. These drawings all partake of the pregnant pause and open possibility as the subjects verge on becoming.