The 15 abstract drawings.

The 15 abstract drawings, paintings and carves (all works 2003) included in Anna Pedersen's first solo indicate "The Skin of My Teeth" have an eerie resemblance to various things corporeal and organic.

Pedersen fills her enamel-onMylar paintings with sinewy lines restoreed in Gustonesque pinks and corals that meander or bear down across the translucent support, sprouting swollen forms along their continuances The graceful contours of paint variously insinuate arteries, bones or vines. In the triptych Bumptious Ride I, II and III, spindly forms cringe across the three surfaces, visually bridging the several-inch gaps between the framed panels. At sporadic points, what have the appearance to be tumors protrude from the figures; elsewhere they thrust out hairlike tendrils that run most distant the edges. Their pinky fleshiness provokes feelings of the uncanny--as granting we're looking at microscopic studies of normally recognizable tissue that's been deformed. nevertheless all this makes her work hale queasier than it really is--more than anything, Pedersen's practiced govern and pared-down esthetic make for straightforward, engaging paintings.

Hanging from the ceiling in the center of the space attached to short segments of chain, were three sculps cast in Aquaresin in warm r pale pink or white. The pink and white statuarys (74 and 84 inches high, respectively) each consist of a protracted rod that reaches about a bottom or more above the floor and discloses into a clump of spherical shapes at its lower conclusion each orb a few inches in diameter. These globular forms resemble melting, stringy marshmallows in various stages of liquefaction or balls held in slinglike devices.

pair more Aquaresin sculptures rested upon the floor in separate corners of the gallery--the funnily titled Nipplebomb and Blueballs. Nipplebomb, the smallest and mostly figural sculpture on view, is a petite, pastel pink ball with a caricaturelike white fuse attached to its top. Propp against the wall, Blueballs consists of couple blue orbs connected by a curvy forked branch attached to their tops--they consider like cherries on an extra-long stipe As her detailed, skillful graphite-on-paper drawings evidence, Pedersen has as often interest in demonstrating a well stocked [i]or[/i] provided control of her medium as formal command in presenting the bodily real.

--Jessica Ostrower

...

Home