Visual Arts
Visions of the beauty, power of the female form

By Matthew Kangas
Special to The Seattle Times

Stephen Rock’s “Fragile Balance”

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Leaving aside the issue of whether any divine "god" or "goddess" can be visually represented at all, the artists here plunge headlong into trying to do justice to the theme. Their efforts are commendable if not always fully successful. Moose's crowded installation in an already awkward, multi-level space doesn't help matters much. However, the amount of work available easily gives viewers enough of an in-depth glance at the current state of exalted female figuration to develop their own opinions.

Some of the work struggles to transcend the category of illustration and some simply accepts commercial illustration's limits. Donald Cole's quick 1981 cartoon is a case in point. Two roosters stand at easels. One is painting a picture of Marilyn Monroe; the other is executing a landscape. In a nutshell, Cole satirizes the sexual potency and power of the male artist over the female form. This power is referred to by feminist art historians as "the male gaze" and Cole's roosters stand in for all male artists.

Joan Wortis' monotype-collage seems more timeless. Her "Angkor Remembered" takes photos of the fabled erotic sculptures of women at the Cambodian archaeological site, Angkor Wat, and sets them over a deep brick-red grid.

Exhibit review "Seventh Annual Celebration of the Goddess," 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, noon-5 p.m. Saturdays, through June 12, Jeffrey Moose Gallery, 1333 Fifth Ave., second level, Rainier Square, Seattle (206-467-6951 or www.jeffreymoosegallery.com).

Like Wortis, Diane Divelbess' "Gaia" also alludes to archaeology: a reclining terra-cotta female figure is surrounded by a dark background. Divelbess hints that, despite efforts of imaginative anthropologists to reconstruct prehistoric European matriarchal societies, much of our grasp of ancient women is through the retrieval of art objects like her clay figurine.

Broader, more simplified representations can have a more direct impact. For instance, the exhibit's most beautiful large painting, "Anima Mundi," by Gloria Ruiz, sets a rainbow of colors above a comforting madonna and next to blooming sunflowers. Most abstract of all the paintings, a small acrylic, "Broadcast," by Bob Lucas, uses two simple colored shapes on a blue background to imply encounter, fertilization and germination without any explicit recourse to anatomy. Its jewel-like colors radiate from the canvas.

	Gloria Ruiz's "Anima Mundi"

Equally oblique, but completely drawn from photographic images, "Fragile Balance" by Stephen Rock is computer-derived but not at all cold or mechanical. More about mother earth than an earth mother, it places shells, rocks and marine life into their own artistic ecosphere.

Finally, two large-scale sculptures offer their own contrasting visions of the female principle. Ann Morris' "Newsbringer" is a truncated bronze female torso regrettably surrounded by potted plants and ferns. Two disembodied arms hold out a broken-off antler either in an offering or defensive pose. Somber and a bit forbidding, "Newsbringer" taps into a primal world few of the other artists approach.

Even better, Native American artist Lillian Pitt combines steel and bronze to create a 7-foot-high bird figure of great power. "Messenger Telling Earth About Sky" has two rusted steel panels that act as wings beneath an imposing bronze eagle's head. A member of the Warm Springs/Wasco Wishram tribes, Pitt reminds us that Northwest native art has always had its own simplified, abstract vocabulary. Dominating the entire display, her "messenger" presides with an intimidating dignity.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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