Animal, Vegetable, Mineral
Marsha Mack and Lindsay Smith Gustave: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral
Leon Gallery
1112 E. 17th Avenue, Denver, CO 80218
Sept. 12-Oct. 24, 2020
Admission: Free
Review by Derrick Velasquez
Marsha Mack and Lindsay Smith Gustave are masters of expansion and collapse. Their exhibition Animal, Vegetable, Mineral at Leon Gallery taps into the notions of abundance, progeny, and growth that temper human desire. With works that shed light on the microscopic, constituent cells of natural and unnatural objects and with imagery that alludes to our contemporary experience of dwelling, the two artists share the space seamlessly and offer viewpoints that are a refreshing reprieve in the midst of heavy times.
An installation view of the exhibition Animal, Vegetable, Mineral by Marsha Mack and Lindsey Smith Gustave at Leon Gallery. Image by DARIA.
The title of the exhibit comes from the 1950s British television show that asked archeological experts to identify ancient objects without any prior information. While this TV show’s colonial underpinnings deserves a thorough critique, Mack and Smith Gustave reveal an alternate version of this game by opening up a secret back door for viewers to examine classification, meaning, and value through the works in this exhibition.
On the wall: Marsha Mack, Entertaining Petit Fours, 2020, mixed media collage with glass rhinestones and glass beads, 12 x 13 x 2 inches. On the pedestal: Marsha Mack, Blue Lattice Vase, 2020, glazed ceramic with glass rhinestones, 6 x 4.5 x 4 inches. Image by DARIA.
Detail images of Marsha Mack, Entertaining Petit Fours, 2020, mixed media collage with glass rhinestones and glass beads, and Blue Lattice Vase, 2020, glazed ceramic with glass rhinestones. Images by DARIA.
Both artists use separate visual and conceptual modes to tackle the subject of human relationships to nature and the natural. Mack creates a series of three installations that feature two central elements surrounded by abundant, mass produced objects—akin to an exploded cosmos or the infant stages of a newly formed galaxy. On the wall, Mack places a mixed media collage depicting food and flowers, while directly below on a pedestal she displays a small, hand-built ceramic vase embellished with rhinestones and glass and filled with fresh flowers. The backdrop for these works is a large, painted circle in a pastel shade covered with an even distribution of carnations in small vials, heart-shaped crystals, or purple-tinted rock candy that position the unique vessels within a sea of potentially unending multiples.
Marsha Mack, Grand Champion: NW Velvetkist Don’t Touch My Tutu, 2018-20, ceramic, faux rose gold leaf, and rhinestones, 8.5 x 11 x 11 in. Image by DARIA.
In Mack’s floor installations, the artist sets up a condensed triptych of stylized, ceramic animals coated in colorful chrome leaf and resting on tile flooring. Titled Grand Champion, each ceramic creatures alludes to an actual show animal: a Kohaku Koi fish, a Westminster Kennel Club best-in-show dog, and an award-winning Persian cat. Mack presents the fish atop a set of pink fur stairs, surrounds the cat with fake flowers and glass gems, and encircles the Bichon canine with small rhinestones and shell soap. In the television show “Animal, Mineral, Vegetable,” the producers often included “fakes” among the genuine artifacts to throw off the archaeologists. Mack, in this case, uses a combination of the authentic and counterfeit with a comic sensibility to create layers of meaning that mediate between jokes and real issues of value.
Lindsay Smith Gustave takes a more intimate approach in her detailed ink and graphite drawings and in her glass bead embroidered still-life pictures. She produces her drawings using a stippling technique where she laboriously lays down small dots in various patterns and densities to create photo-realistic likenesses. Her images are made up of directly domestic scenes: hands, vases, oranges (often peeled or partially eaten), and indoor plant life.
On the left: Lindsay Smith Gustave, Conversations in Vacancy, 2019, ink and graphite on paper, 35 x 25 inches. On the right: .Lindsay Smith Gustave, Firestarter, 2018, ink and graphite on paper, 20 x 24 inches. Image by Amanda Tipton.
A detail of Lindsay Smith Gustave, Conversations in Vacancy, 2019, ink and graphite on paper. Image by DARIA.
There is a starkness within the negative space of these works where the viewer must make a visual and conceptual leap. For example, in the drawing Conversations in Vacancy, Smith Gustave creates a black and white still life containing a central vase and a few broad leaves of a plant accompanied by a human hand in the lower left corner. She omits a number of the stems to force an anti-gravitational disconnect between leaf and ground. The counterbalance of the hand appears to be the force responsible for this magic floating trick.
Lindsay Smith Gustave, Citrus Season, 2020, glass beads, thread, and chiffon,
36 x 24 inches. Image by DARIA.
A detail of Lindsay Smith Gustave, Citrus Season, 2020, glass beads, thread, and chiffon. Image by DARIA.
Smith Gustave also addresses this void of space in her work Citrus Season, where she shows off her newest technique of embroidering glass beads onto chiffon. In this piece, she uses tiny silver beads to imply the outline of a glass bowl containing a single beaded orange. A few flies orbit around the dish, suggesting a summery domestic scene where the last orange of the bunch sits ripening for bugs to devour. One can’t help but think of traditional still-life painting as a reference here, but Smith Gustave removes any sense of a figure-ground relationship, even revealing the wooden stretcher beneath. Lying somewhere between object and image, the viewer has to confront the minimal composition in this work in tandem with the maximal effort the artist exerts in crafting the imagery by sewing two small glass beads at a time. The tension created through the emptiness surrounding these gestures is in direct contrast to Mack’s compositions where mass-produced goods fill the space surrounding her hand-made ceramic pieces.
Animal, Mineral, Vegetable is a lot to take in. At a time when the virus has sequestered most of us in our homes, we have undoubtedly come face to face with our boundaries of “too much-ness” or “not enough-ness.” Each work in this show is a reservoir for our experience of emotional complexities within singular and multiple objects, but they never make us feel alone among them.
Derrick Velasquez is an artist and exhibition organizer who lives and works in Denver, Colorado. He is on the board of Tilt West and Minerva Projects and operates Yes Ma’am Projects—an artist-run gallery in the basement of his Athmar Park home.
