There are places where Jessica Goldfinch might be considered over
the top, and not just in the Bible Belt regions of the Deep South and
Midwest. It is also true that works like her statue of a visibly
pregnant Virgin Mary are not likely to grace local shrines anytime
soon. Still, in a city where events like the Krewe du Vieux parade and
Southern Decadence festival are hailed as proof New Orleans has
returned to "normal" after the floods of 2005, not much is considered
shocking. And that's a good thing, because it allows us to contemplate
the deeper implications of her work rather than obsess over
superficialities.
Goldfinch's Holy Card series is an
exploration of religious, especially Roman Catholic, iconography
rendered in Shrinky Dinks media. Beyond saintly wonders, she invokes
modern scientific miracles in works like Immaculate Open
Heart, a synthesis of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and a modern
surgical procedure. Mother of Swords is more Byzantine: a
veiled Madonna with a Sacred Heart replete with connecting veins and
arteries as well as six swords pressed to her breast, all rendered like
a colorful holy card. It's a tribute to the power of imagery that this
looks more like an actual historical artifact than the speculative
imaginings of a New Orleans artist.
The hits keep on coming in another series that melds
vintage fashion with anatomical infirmities. Figures from a 1950s
Vogue pattern book appear modified with leg or neck braces, even
amputated limbs, as seen in Envy (pictured); and lest this be
taken for campy schadenfreude, it should be noted that Goldfinch
herself endured a cardiac birth defect that went undiagnosed for 34
years despite frequent trips to the emergency room. Like the saints of
yore, she relates to the suffering of others. Whether salvation is
finally experienced in the form of divine or man-made miracles is
ultimately a matter best left to the metaphysical proclivities of the
beholder.
Jessica Goldfinch: Holy Cards and Other Versions of
Mortality
Through Sun., Sept. 27
CoLAB Projects, 527 St. Joseph St., 566-8999; www.colabprojects.com
