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Marc
Awodey
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7
Days
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April
25, 2001
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In
1971 feminist art critic Lucy Lippard described female characteristics
in art as "often sensuously tactile and often repetitive to the
point of obsession." She noted a "preponderance of circular
forms" as well as an indescribable "looseness and flexibility
of handling," among other attributes. While there remains no real
agreement on what a definition of feminist art should be, Lippard's
catalogue of characteristics comes to mind when considering the carved
sculpture of Nancy Azara. A leader of the contemporary feminist art
movement, Azara's most recent work is now on display at the University
of Vermont's Colburn Gallery.
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Beyond
Lippard's preliminary notions of a feminist aesthetic, there is nothing
gender-specific about what Azara presents in these six pieces. Her iconography
includes spirals, but they are universal. The scalloped, tactile rhythms
of Azara's wood carving are closely related to Gaugin's carvings and woodcuts
than to the more domestic sources of feminist art examined by Judy Chicago,
Miriam Schapiro, Faith Ringgold, and others. And Azara's references to
the spiritual seem more personal than dogmatic
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Sticks
with Green has four severed tree limbs mounted
on flat carved panels. As in all of Azara's work in this show, gold leaf
is used in abundance, and she brightens it using the medieval trick of
layering the gold leaf over red paint. A dark green area at the top of
the image gives Sticks with Green an element
of chromatic opposition- dark and ominous behind the limbs, which have
been layered with pale aluminum leaf.
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"Jacket
with Gold" has two bent limbs affixed to the front of two slightly
tapered planks, giving the form a "jacket" But the limbs also
frame a mandala-shaped negative space, and Azara has carved and painted
spirals onto the limbs. Again, red and gold dominate the eye.
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A
more direct reference to spiritual power appears in Hand
Altar. The 6-by-4-by-3-foot piece is painted wood, gold leaf and encaustic.
Groupings of carved-out hand prints ascend on the face of the altar, from
eight prints in the dark lower reaches near the floor, to four prints
at the midsection above a series of spirals, to two flanking a group of
vertical grooves and a pair of long sticks, which form the central axis
of the piece. Azara's Hand Altar describes
a process of evolution or passage and, like all altars, implies the possibility
of ritual.
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Changes
demonstrates Azara's virtuosity as a carver and the flexibility of her
iconography of hands, spirals, and grooves. Forty-four 12-inch carved
squares have been arranged into a 4-by-11-foot grid that seems to symbolically
describe the passage of life from birth to death. As read from left to
right and top to bottom, the final square of the grid is a dark green
square with sprigs of olive carved onto it. Olive branches are a complicated
symbol, going beyond the well-known representation of peace. They were
associated with the wisdom of Athena, and the justice of her wisdom, by
the ancient Greeks.
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Changes
works formally well. Darker and lighter panels are strategically arranged
to maintain movement. hues are varied: Near the lower corner is a scarlet
panel, which contrasts with the more crimson red used everywhere else,
that pulls the eye toward the olivine denouement. Textures, from
choppy bas relief to smooth ponds of encaustic, are likewise organized
with overall movement in mind. These also serve to transition the narrative
quality in the works.
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Azara's
artwork seems to transcend the cluttered art history of the last third of
the 20th century. While she helped shape, and was shaped by, the often divisive
currents of the feminist art movement 30 years ago, Azara not been standing
still since. The equity called for by the civil-rights movement of that
era often led to more radical visions of separatism, but in the long term,
Azara seems to have avoided that trap. Her work, therefore, has a wider
appeal.
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All
images ©Nancy Azara 2009
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