Metamorphosis

With energy and environmental concerns necessitating global change,
we’re seeing artists reconsider mankind’s ambiguous place within nature
and yet apart from it. The drawings of Kate Eric (aka Kate
Tedman and Eric Siemens) and the soft sculptures of Marina Vendrell
Renaut combine natural motifs and materials to suggest a dynamic
cosmos in which hierarchical categories dissolve, freeing their
constituent elements to recombine in mysterious mutations. The
artworks’ occasional sexual implications are suggested by the show’s
sly title, Flaming Furbelows — ruffles or flounces
set alight. Remember Oppenheim’s furry teacup and Duchamp’s verbal
desecration of Mona Lisa, “L.H.O.O.Q.”?

Kate Eric shows heavily impasted acrylic paintings on paper entitled
Bug Wars that explore the “natural purgative and creative powers
of violence.” With their sprawling compositions of tangled “giant
anacondas, quivering intestinal tracts, furry placentas, monsters
giving birth to rooster heads, and … other hellhounds (Nirmala
Nataraj),” they’re the hybrid offspring of fairy tales and comics
(Arthur Rackham and Basil Wolverton come to mind) and Surrealism in
both its realistic (Tanguy, Dali) and abstract (Miro, Masson) modes.
One could consider them as a kind of automatic (trance-induced) drawing
except for the intricate detail required to delineate these pellucid
submarine worlds of armored fish, snakes, birds, and insects set amid
(or trapped within) interlacing tentacles, tufts, tendrils, and
billowing diaphanous membranes. There’s a perverse beauty in the cosmic
war of all against all.

Renaut deconstructs and reassembles plush toys and music boxes in
order to poke fun at and make peace with the comical aspects of human
mammalian existence, especially the various orifices and fur patches
that we higher primates cultivate so assiduously. Renault employs
knitting and crocheting, with their domestic, cheery associations, to
create cozy yet absurdist Bourgeoisean homes for her scavenged objects.
“Coochie Boo Hoo” is a pink column of cascading intestinal casings
fashioned from old sweaters and socks. “Fungus” is a bundle of white
faux fur from which dangle crocheted mushrooms, suggesting a certain
je ne sais quoi — as do the radio-controlled rolling
critter-floats of “Reanimated,” with their furry domed shells and
snaking crocheted necks. The “Musical Marmot” series comprises five of
the weasel-like animals (recycled from stoles) hanging from pink loops
that erupt from their throats, with crocheted guts spilling from their
midsections; fuzzy pompoms below, when pulled down (to a
ratcheting/racking sound), activate lullaby-tinkling hidden music
boxes. Flaming Furbelows runs through May 2 at Johansson
Projects (2300 Telegraph Ave., Oakland). JohanssonProjects.com or
510-444-9140.