Silk fabrications by Marilyn Preus and forged metal work by Brad Hal.

Mary E. Black Gallery
S&M
Marilyn Preus and Brad Hall
Curator, Léola Le Blanc
October 27 to December 17 – 2006

S&M

Silk and metal appear to be diametric opposites. Silk is soft, feminine and light whereas metal is hard, masculine and heavy. Silk invokes luxurious robes while metal invokes tools and weapons. However, both are extremely strong and shiny. When melted to its fluid form metal can be plastic and malleable like silk and can be braided, woven and formed. Both are fundamental in the use of decoration, ornamentation and embellishment.

The use of silk fibre dates back to 2600 BC in China. In fact Chinese silk was so abundant during the Han dynasty that its fabric was used as part of a soldier’s wages. (Kolander, 1985). Throughout history great and dangerous journeys were undertaken to acquire such a treasure. It is the jewel of fibres and highly desired. Silk is the most lustrous of natural fibres with a smooth surface that is reflective, warm and very seductive. It is also incredibly strong. One strand of silk is as strong as an iron wire of equal diameter and stronger than a steel wire of equal weight.

Metal and hot forging processes also share a long history originating around 5500 BC. Blacksmithing began with the Iron Age and tool making, culminating in the fabrication of weaponry and body armor. The forging process demands sharp intermittent blows from a hammer or other tool while the metal is from white to red hot and most malleable and plastic, or after the metal is annealed and cool. Forging is done primarily with iron and steel but also with copper and bronze.

The combination and collaboration of these two mediums and artists, Marilyn Preus and Brad Hall, make for a resplendent experience and a reconsideration of the Vienna Secession movement idea that every exhibition was a ‘total work of art’, a term used to express the notion that a synthetic form of art that was larger than the sum of its parts. (Whitford, 1993). Walking into the S & M exhibition is not unlike walking into an oversized, elaborate wardrobe of fine garments and exquisite metal ornamentation. Marilyn’s use of recycled silk evening wear, a dress by the designer Nipon, neckties, and new India silk which are transformed into ‘Haute Couture’ quilt art marry perfectly with Brad’s large hand forged jewelleried accessories and freestanding metalwork in copper, iron and stainless steel.

The several works on display have strong allegorical themes reaching back into the Biblical and the mythical. They bring us into contact with individuals who surmount formidable feats and deeds in order to break away from the bounds of common everyday life. This transcendence parallels both Marilyn’s and Brad’s work processes. Marilyn’s laborious silk quilt art assemblages are entirely created, painted and stitched while standing since she suffers from an agonizing lower back condition. On the other hand, Brad’s multifarious and multi-ferrous metal fabrications demand hours of exposure to the heat of a hot forge combined with the arduous, repetitive blows of the hammer on metal causing strain on shoulder and elbows very much like RSI, (Repetitive Strain Injury). This is exacerbated by Brad’s choice of working with stainless steel which is four times harder than iron.

Judith, Icarus, Daedalus, Eve and the owl in the Tree of Life epitomize the paradisiacal nature of the mythical and fictitious heroine and hero. These are beings that surpass the mundane machinations of run-of-the-mill humanity. Judith, a beautiful Jewish heroine, frees her people from political and military oppression by slaying Holofernes, the Assyrian general. Daedalus, an Athenian architect imprisoned in a tower on the Greek island of Crete, fabricates wings of feathers and wax and teaches himself and his son to fly. He succeeds in his escape but his son Icarus, however, exulting in his freedom, soars upward to reach the heavens and in turn melts his wings and plunges into the sea and drowns. Icarus may have drowned in his folly, but he did exceed his human bounds and grasped at the tips of a higher order. In Adam and Eve, Eve hands Adam a rib, not her own rib but the rib of a chicken; here is a woman who likes to keep her own anatomy intact, thank you very much. This re-edited Eve repels the Christian notion of ‘woman the temptress’, responsible for our fall from grace.

The work entitled Tree of Life evokes Gustav Klimt’s owl in the Stoclet Frieze. The owl is associated with the Greek goddess Pallas, Athena goddess of wisdom and appropriately enough patron of arts and crafts. She is also the goddess of war and defender of the state recalling Judith, protectress and heroine of Bethulia. It is interesting to note that the Vienna Secession movement over which Klimt presided also adopted the goddess Athena as their protectress. The Secession is a recurring subject in Marilyn’s works and in the modernist design of Brad’s fabrication of a folding screen for the Tree of Life. Like the modernist furniture design of the Vienna Secession movement (Art Nouveau), Brad also transforms nature into highly-stylized organic and vegetal forms. Long grass blades adorn the side of the screen while stylized buds and leaves crown the top. Judith (after Klimt), Tree of Life and Icarus borrow techniques favoured by Klimt like his use of gold, jewels, and the application of decorative tracery to express tension between ecstasy and terror, life and death. (Nebehay, 1994).

The Secessionists professed the equality of all arts: each exhibition was a total piece of art. This ethos is reflected in the exhibition S & M and the collaborative work of Marilyn and Brad. Brad renders Holofernes’s hair out of cut strips of copper that dangle from ceiling to floor inches away from his stainless steel vessels, receptacles-in-waiting, waiting for the collection of Holofernes’s head from the grasp of Judith. In Icarus one of Icarus’s fallen wings lies prostrate on the floor, silver stainless steel intimating the forfeit of sun-kissed gold tipped wings, while a golden metal sun perches atop Marilyn’s pink silk sky. These exalted themes require time and attention and, appropriately enough, Brad’s creation of a stainless steel snakeskin-textured three-legged trinity bench is set to face this realm.

Kolander, Cheryl. A Silk Worker’s Notebook. Colarado: Interweave Press, 1985.

Nebehay, Christian M. Gustav Klimt, from Drawing to Painting. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994.

Whitford, Frank. Artists In Context Gustav Klimt.; London: Brockhampton Press, 1993