March 10, 2023
Local News for a Global Village | www.VoiceSB.com
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Sullivan Goss: An American Gallery
Surrealism: Departure from Reality
By Lynn Moss Holley, Special to VOICE
H
ONORING WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH and paying tribute to women who joined the Surrealist Movement that began in France and entered America in the 1920s, Sullivan Goss curators Susan Bush and Jeremy Tessmer chose fifteen contemporary women artists for Surreal Women, on view through April 24th. Surrealists denounced conventions, dropped in on their subconscious where dreams and desires rest, and literally and visually mingled reason with unreason, daydreams and nightmares, desires and fears, and magic, mythology, and sexuality to create works that still stun the senses and boggle the mind.
The Lightness of Being by Dorothy Churchill-Johnson
A visit to Surreal Women offers an opportunity to glance into symbolism The Watcher by Pausha Foley and dreamscapes that transcend reality. While few of the works share the same In contrast Susan Tibbles’ three small assemblages, minute shock and awe that early pioneer women offered, collectively by comparison, deliver an awe inspiring look into the early Sullivan Goss presents an exquisite exhibition of skilled 1900s. Tibbles allows us to peek through the bow of violin artists who work beyond reality. This is possible thanks to strings to a time of restrictions on women and immigrants. past pioneers such as Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, and It is a brilliant assemblage of time and space. It helps us to Valentine Hugo, who made history and opened the door for visualize the past, and reflect on how far we have come, or women to create in a revolutionary fashion. They painted and not come, in the 21st Century. exhibited with the ranks of Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, Man Animals often play a symbolic role in surrealism, as Ray, and other leaders of the movement. they are never just for decoration. They are there for reasons Notable in the exhibition is Pausha Foley who could known and unknown, often not even understood by the easily be called a surrealist with The artist. French essayist Marcel Proust Watcher. She put pencil to paper and wrote about the unseen world of an Featured Artists: Rebekah created a female nude sporting an animal artist, from the composition of music Bogard, Dorothy Churchill head looking upon dueling horses. Others to the creation of the visual arts, and Johnson, Sharon Ellis, working in a strict surrealist manner are beyond. He noted that artists may Pausha Foley, Betty Lane, Angela Perko, with Unkindness of Ravens, create a world that you may or may not Helen Lundeberg, Susan Susan McDonnell with DayDream, Maria follow, a place even the artist can not McDonnell, Angela Perko, Rendon with Deer, and Patssi Valdez with Astrid Preston, Maria Rendón, articulate, yet may still try to express. Somber Clouds. Although a bit odd for this exhibition, Lena Rushing, Blakeney Sanford, Susan Tibbles, Patssi the ceramics of Rebekah Bogard offer Lena Rushing’s Adriatic, is a subtle us time to explore the meaning of the Valdez, Monica Wiesblott choice from her total oeuvre, which is animal in its kingdom or out of its more flush with surrealism. Yet, her domain. Her work acts as an oasis to painting of a female whose head fades as a the intensity in the exhibition. shadow on a full green gown that overpowers the body, is big, bold, and remarkably beautiful.
The progression of artistic styles through the 20th Century put some distance between the early movement, which was often chaotic. However, the spread of time opened up vast channels of abstraction from reality. The majority of artists in Surreal Women fit well into this departure.
Deer by Maria Rendón
Two special examples are The Lightness of Being, by Dorothy Churchill-Johnson, who places a beautiful flower under a microscope, and then puts it on steroids to explode on a giant canvas in front of a desert landscape. One can not help but feel the rearrangement of perception.
Artists should force us to have a dialogue, and all the paintings seem to offer that opportunity, as demonstrated additionally by Sharon Ellis, Susan McDonnell, Helen Lundeberg, Astrid Preston, Betty Lane. Blakeney Sanford, works to bring us beyond reality, by offering us some reality with Kinesis-Grassland, a video art installation of The Portals. Monica Wiesblott’s seven uniquely printed gold fringed plates are fascinating, and require study and deep observation to reveal their secrets. As an exhibition, Surreal Women is a unique gathering that brings us to and sometimes well beyond the borders of reality.