The
shapes of Elsa Mora’s art pieces are familiar: dolls,
scissors, a twig, a flower, a shell, a piece of coral, a bone, a
section of blood vessels. But hers is not a straight-forward
representation. Mora alters the form slightly or adds a degree
of unfamiliarity with an unexpected use of materials, scale or
juxtaposition. It is this slight twist that gives the work its
edge, taking it from the realm of the familiar into that of the
symbolic. For the most part, the colors are subtle--white,
off-white, beige. Still, the pieces deliver a strong emotional
charge.
Cuban-born and educated, now living in Los Angeles, Mora is an
ardent collector. Anything--object or material--is likely to
turn up in her artwork at some point. In addition to found
objects, she uses paper clay, polymer clay, laminated and shaped
paper, fabric, felt, photography, digital imagery, metal, oil
paint, ink and graphite to create her installations,
assemblages, sculptures, paintings and drawings. Most pieces are
small (under eight inches), giving them an intimate, personal
feel. The groupings of objects--between eight and twenty or more
in a single 16” x 20” framed box--are arranged in an orderly
fashion. Exhibited in this way, as if they are part of an
archaeological display, the objects are indeed “Especimenes /
Specimens,” as the exhibit’s title indicates.
“Tijeras” (“Scissors”), a series of elegant porcelain
pieces, some displayed individually, some in groupings, are
suggestive of the tool for which they are named. Whereas the
essence of scissors is their functionality, Mora’s pieces are
nonfunctional, not just because they are ceramic, but also due
to how she has configured them. In one, instead of blades, there
are pink tubes twisted together. In another, slightly-folded
leaf-like shapes replace the blades. All the “Tijeras”
terminate in shapes that are blunt, bulbous or a singular
(rather than double-bladed) form. They elicit thoughts of tongs,
forceps, gardening tools (clippers and loppers), even
backscratchers; they evoke tools used in the kitchen, around the
home and in the medical profession; tools used by women and on
women, for example, in childbirth. Even the leaf-like, bulbous,
or other plant-like shapes, are evocative of life’s cyclical
nature.
While scissors and other
hand-tools function as an extension of the body, the objects in
the “Second Nature” series refer to the body more directly.
Again, some of the objects are exhibited individually, others in
groups. In each grouping there is at least one figure or
portrait—a doll, a drawn image, or a three-dimensional
assemblage. There are also references to organs, tissue, muscle,
bone, veins and vessels. But because these objects are displayed
with other forms that suggest flowers, plants and plant-like
parts, and because Mora’s pieces refer to rather than
realistically represent the object we think of when viewing the
work—whether it is a body part or not—we tend to focus less
on an object’s form, i.e. what it resembles, and more on the
psychological and emotional implications that the objects and
the arrangements elicit. In one of the “Second Nature”
groups, the face of a woman directs her gaze towards the figure
of a man in military dress. Three elongated objects separate
them and a dozen other plant-like and/or body-like forms of
various shapes and sizes surround them. It is the separation
that we focus on as we construct scenarios, assigning meaning
and implication to the various objects, based on our own
personal associations and experiences.
When viewing work such as this, I wonder if one becomes an
artist because one is a collector, or if one becomes a collector
because one is an artist. Like other chicken-and-egg questions,
the reward lies not in the answer, but in the process of
investigation.
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