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Twin Town High (vol. 8) |
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Curiously Strong Art at Soo Visual Arts Center
Thursday 30 June @ 09:52:17 |
 by Natasha Walter
Soo Visual Arts Center is currently hosting an exhibit sponsored by Altoids, appropriately entitled A Curiously Strong Collection. Each year Altoids challenges artists, galleries, critics and curators to identify work from candidates across the country that is strong, original and curious. Altoids itself purchases between 20 and 25 new works annually.
 Perhaps
the work most striking and indicative of the spirit of the collection at Soo
is John Largaespada's digital print “La Boheme.” The only artist
from Minneapolis featured in the show, Largaespada’s mantel-size image
depicts an eerie cast of characters. The scene is set in a dark room. Only a
painting still wet on its easel and a window bright with light puncture the
darkness. In this room, however, the four people that stand in the foreground
immediately command your attention. In the lower left corner a middle-aged man
scrunches his body in paranoid fear. He wears a yellow plaid suit, adding to
his eccentricity.
Beside him, an older man stands with most of his back to the viewer. Wearing
a black cloak and a top hat, his expression conveys the feeling that he harbors
a dark secret. To his right stands a woman clad in Victorian-era clothing. Oddly,
she holds a fur bag out in front of her, as though offering its unexposed contents
to her absent-minded picture-mates. Her makeup is grotesquely thick, adding
to the absurd lavishness of her appearance. To her right, in the corner, sits
a woman in tattered rags nervously clutching them at her chest. One lazy eye
wanders upward while the other stares blankly past the viewer as though absorbed
by a distant but disturbing memory.
Equally intense, but entirely different, is Randall Sellers’ (Philadelphia)
untitled drawing. Spanning about 2 inches high and 2 inches wide, the image
is astonishing in its level of detail. This penciled snapshot is an imagined
scene from a city that seems timeless. Not futuristic or historical, the minuscule
drawing depicts Grecian-like ruins beside future industrialism. Palm trees are
also included, adding a hint of the tropics that seems out of place. The languid
warm weather palms poignantly emphasize the emotionally cold landscape of the
city.
Charlene Liu’s (New York) “Fountainhead of the Perennial River”
is an elegant but psychedelic rainforest scene. About 5 feet in height, the
piece features an orange river. Foliage in all shades of green fades into the
pinks and oranges of the flowers that literally spill over the edge of the picture.
Add to this effulgence the layers created with delicately cut watercolor flowers
and the force of the white background grounding the image in an imaginary space,
and you have before you a sort of tropical never-never land.
If your summer has been characterized by tranquil sun and trips to the beach,
then a dose of Curiously Strong art may be just what you need. A healthy injection
of eerie and immaculate work that goes to the extremes, Altoid’s Curiously
Strong Collection will give boost your capacity for the unusual and intense.
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A Curiously Strong Collection runs through July 8 at the Soo Visual
Arts Center, 2640 Lyndale Ave. S., Mpls. 612-871-2263. Hours are Mon., Wed.,
Thu. & Fri. noon–6 p.m. & Sat.–Sun. noon–4 p.m.
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