The expressions are inscrutable. Wide-set eyes cast down or to the side; lids lowered like shades against intrusion; lips relaxed, sometimes slightly open: the ashen clay figures of Charlene Doiron Reinhart look inward and take the viewer with them. Like the white-painted characters in Butoh theatre, their expressions are communicated by the whole highly stylized form and given power by eloquent naturalistic details.
In “Fragile Strength,” a two-person exhibit that opened Nov. 4 at Cabrillo Gallery, Reinhart and glass artist Cassandra Straubing each address disturbing contemporary issues using quiet voices, delicate media and technical mastery.
In her artist statement, Reinhart refers to her mixed heritage (her mother is Japanese, her father Cajun) as the source of her inspiration. Whatever the source, her work has a spare, refined aesthetic and a cheeky earthiness. At the gallery entrance, Arbor Tritus beckons. From chest to crown a haunting 2-foot bust of a woman stretches up through a trunk-like elongated neck that holds a long oval face atop which a wild craggy nest of branches sweeps up further still. From out of the pursed mouth of that mask-like face another branch emerges. In front of her chest, a scarily naturalistic hand with a string wrapped around one finger is positioned, palm toward face. Meanwhile, a bird leans out of the nest of twigs at the crown.
The overall form is exaggerated, but the details—the wood, the bird, the heavy-lidded eyes within dark bruise-colored sockets, a suggestion of corporeal essence in the folds and creases of skin under a thick shiny layer of white on top—looks like thick theatrical greasepaint. The over-layer is called terra sigillata, a thin mixture of porcelain clay painted over the unfired coarser clay below to provide a shiny but not entirely opaque surface. In this case, the unearthly white “skin” is made even more intriguing by revealing the warmer clay below—where the gestural strokes of the sculptor are still in evidence. The whole represents the Greek myth of Daphne, who spurned the love of Apollo and all men and turned into a laurel tree. This view of nature and human co-being is a theme repeated in many of Reinhart’s 17 pieces in the show.
Cruel Cut is a wall-mounted sculpture, a stylized, androgynous and elongated head, mouth open as if to breathe; the gleaming sigillata surface of the face framed by the pink skin of delicate ears. The top of the head sprouts tree roots—a clear-cut forest.
Cassandra Straubing’s glass pieces have a similar dichotomy, representing utilitarian buckets, needles and other implements out of luminous, thick-walled cast glass sandblasted to a dazzling finish. A luscious exhibition that runs through Dec. 10. Read more of The Exhibitionist at www.kusp.org.
