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reviews criticism

Grey Matters critical essay In JB Daniels’ Grey Matters, small elements are sealed in transparent envelopes, each one hovering above the image of a headless, legless and hairless female nude. Though I hesitate in using the word "nude" with its traditional connotations. But the image is not "nude" or "naked", and can hardly be characterized as a figure. There is obviously a reference to a female, but there is nothing about this female that seems to have lived. She looks plastic, or in this two-dimensional sense, illustrational. She is the mass produced, commercial image of a female as blatant and unfelt as a stop sign. In fact there is a sense of devout faith in commercialism with this piece. Almost all of the enveloped elements that are suspended above the missing head of the many-times reproduced female are things that have also been reproduced. There ticket stubs, box tops, torn pieces of paper, labels, tags, and coins: all things we commonly see and handle in our lives without any thought each one singled out to be juxtaposed with the sterilly dismembered human image. The only segments that hint at natural objects are a single hair (aptly titled Big Hair), and a bunch of oatmeal (Mush). The piece is an interesting exercise in depicting the contrast between mass-production and humanity. But wait all of the objects attached to the piece are held within transparent envelopes, as if to be secret trinkets. Although, they are plainly visible, which begs a questioning of the psychology of an envelope. A lot of the magic of an envelope is that it is a sealed, personal, thing. They hold letters, love notes, invitations. These envelopes are revealing their captures, making it easy for the viewer to quickly experience it. You get it right away, as if the piece was saying "Look at my breasts! And this tag I am pretending to be hiding!" It is enough to make you walk away, missing half of what you are meant to have seen. This is a similar scenario to Richard Hamilton’s patchworks of photos and labels or Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s soup cans from the sixties. It is so easy to notice the color and the pattern quickly and completely, it is often over looked that each can has a different soup name on it. Here, each piece has a different trinket on it. And a closer investigation of these trinkets is needed to go to any depth with the piece. Printed words say "yes/no", "sign here" and, backwards, "fuck me". A whole story is revealed through these commercial tidbits about a woman, a relationship, and her body. All the details are discreetly avoided, or merely suggested, in contrast to the blatancy with which the image of the dismembered figure appears. For example, two commercially made , unnatural sweeteners are seen next to each other, Sweet and Low, and Equal, but not just plain sugar. These items are the commercial mask of a natural product. Perhaps this suggests a lack of true sweetness, a pack of lies or patronization. Another discreet image is that of the transparent envelope cut to hang open; a rather grotesque comparison to the female missing her head and legs. This may imply another unnatural opening, perhps an abortion, or forcefully drawn words or actions on the part of this woman. There are nice elements to this piece, which may lead to the assumption that the rice paper envelopes and humanly handled objects are leaning on their aesthetic value to carry it. The human image is certainly not rendered extremely realistically, nor is there any depth in the composition: a simple, central iconic depiction. Though Daniels’ has opened a small window for the interpretation of a life, asking us to impose our own sense of realism and humanity on the images and objects before us. -Christie DeNape-Hall