Walking into the gallery, the viewer is surrounded by darkness. Rose petals are scattered across the floor and synthetic bondage straps hang from the ceiling. Black lights cast a purple tint onto the gallery’s sculpture pieces, hiding their true color variations. A collection of flowers can be perceived as being overtaken by cement, representing human innovation that paves over nature.
The exhibition “Flower Eaters” in the ANTI-AESTHETIC art center examines the idea of the apocalypse through elements of lust and the supernatural. The artists, UO MFA candidates Mary Wells, Dana Buzzee and Caroline Luchuiki, utilize various plastic materials to resemble exposed flesh and sexual fantasies in sculptures and collages. The objects are intended to be artificial and removed from our reality.
“Our vision for ‘Flower Eaters’ was to weave our individual pieces together into an altar,” Buzzee said. “The lighting is a crucial element to this exhibition as it offers a visual representation of space-set-apart and realities-shifted within the gallery.”
Agnese Cebere, the program director at Eugene Contemporary Art and fellow MFA cohort member alongside Buzzee and Lichucki, said the show was formed by the artists’ concerns about climate change and governmental power shifts. Cebere said catastrophes force people to “face the mortality of ourselves and culture.”
All three artists pay homage to subcultures such as BDSM (bondage, domination, sadism and masochism), witchcraft and death. Buzzee’s large-scale synthetic resin bondage straps interconnect and overlap with chains and sigels that hang from the ceiling to floor. Sigels are unique symbols of ancient deities that hold powers to heal or create chaos. Buzzee’s piece examines the fragility of the world and the global industries that bind humans together. Buzzee believes people have a “fetishism” for objects by identifying with consumerist and globalist values.
“I was really interested in fallacies and fantasies of health and healing, the way that is tied into many aspects of our society such as capitalism, supply chains and the health and wellness industry,” Buzzee said. “I am interested in using art to elucidate new narratives that trouble essentializing approaches to these topics, as a speculative work around what it means to be sick or healthy, what it means to be toxic or intoxicated.”
In Mary Evans’ piece “Scrying Mirror,” the viewer experiences a sense of dread and mystery looking into the void. The piece’s dark hole intimidates the viewer and makes one scared to find their own reflection on the other side. The mirror channels “otherworldly entities,” Evans wrote in the gallery pamphlet. The mirror is created with the opaque chemical called resin, which tints the mirror and casts a sinister form of oneself. Cebere explains the uneasiness of the piece is one’s ability to cope with the unknown.
“Evans’ work has to do with death, but also another realm beyond this physical one,” Cebere said. “The scrying mirror is kind of part of that. The unknown is definitely frightening and depends on how one relates to it.”
In “Lucifer and Madonna of Sorrows,” Caroline Lichucki portrays “star-crossed lovers.” The piece is a collage of interlaced fabrics of undergarment and translucent cloth. The picture is framed with black bondage straps, suggesting a forced relationship between the pair. Painted red arteries and blue veins painted connect the lovers. However, their love is proved to be tragic by the tear-shaped pins pierced into the nipples and eye ducts of the characters. Cebere said Lichucki’s piece demonstrates the misery and the untold seductiveness of biblical characters.
“It has a lot to do with the dark side of religious iconography and subversion,” Cebere said. “I think there is a nod to sexuality and kink.”
Although the exhibit has a deep interest in the possible outcomes of society’s ruin, there is also a sense of hope in these pieces. The art pushes people to reflect on the benefits they can receive from their cultural identity and recognize the disruptive factors of consumerism that have been disconnecting them from society. Cebere suggests we can all learn something in this crazy world.
“I think what we can learn from this exhibit is that there is hope in community by amplifying each other’s goodness,” Cebere said. “We can be better in making conservations by sharing our ideals.”
The “Flower Eaters” exhibit is on display at the ANTI-AESTHETIC art center in downtown Eugene from Oct. 23 through Dec. 19. It is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 12 p.m. -4 p.m.
Eugene Contemporary Art presents “Flower Eaters”, an exhibition of work by Artists Dana Buzzee, Mary Evans, and Caroline Lichucki. Their practices merge occult spirituality and art, “be it BDSM, post-apocalypse fecundity, teen witch dreaming, or cultic technologies”, all emergent in their pieces. The Anti-Aesthetic Gallery in Eugene hosts its newest contemporary art show, “Flower Eaters”, presented by Eugene Contemporary Art, featuring the works of Artists Dana Buzzee, Mary Evens, and Caroline Lichuki. The show is available for viewing Fridays by appointment and Saturdays from 12-4pm. (Sam Henry // The Daily Emerald)
