To be sure, Flemington’s oneiric world is a seductive construction. Every girl – or, rather, every young lady – dons a skirt and a cardigan; and a pair of stockings, a pair of heels, and a pearl necklace wait, it seems, to be pulled tenderly from each girl’s nymphic skin. The rule is retro-’60s-coed, and the dainty birds of The Bell Jar flutter to mind. From beginning to end, the color palette is pastel, with pinks and soft browns dominating. Backgrounds are held in a soft focus, while high-key lighting frames the young ladies’ perfectly dolled-up faces. One recalls the ethereal prettiness of a Sofia Coppola movie, especially The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette. The “B.D.E.Y.L.” shares the same candy-coated, womanly aesthetic that both indulges in and ironically questions what we view as “feminine pleasures”: it’s no coincidence that the series focuses on young ladies eating cake, but it’s also no accident that several of the photos show them eating cake in the bathroom.

Although it’s easy to get caught up in the blue-eyed, red-lipped dreaminess of the “B.D.E.Y.L.,” we mustn’t forget that Flemington’s creation is also a tease. The cardiganed young ladies may look longingly off to the side of the camera or gaze directly, flirtatiously, into it, but the photographer always seems to be winking. Yes, the mise-en-scène is frilly and girly and just oh-so-delicate, but this is faux-naïveté. The handwritten cards replete with misspellings (some acknowledged, some not), the store-bought cake, the “candid” poses—these are deliberate choices that cannot be taken at face value. The photographs are coded as innocent, but they are not authentic documents of innocence. Between the producers and consumers of fantasy, there always exists an amount of pretense: you know it’s fake, and I know it’s fake, but for just a moment let’s pretend otherwise. In these images, Flemington underlines this playful compact and stretches it to its breaking point. An overabundance of cues tells you that this is “just pretend.” But do you choose to play the game and pretend and maybe have a little fun anyway? Can we have our cake and eat it, too?

Make-believe can be a seductive game, but ultimately the fact that we know it all to be make-believe ruins the illusion. Perhaps in this sense, Flemington’s work shares something in common with Cindy Sherman’s early Untitled Film Stills. These “Chicagoettes” may be playing dress-up, but rest assured the indulgence is ironic; if not quite camp, it is equally self-aware.

I left Romania for Chicago when I was six years old and grew up in a traditionally American, middle-class, Midwestern home. Then, in the seventies, I attended college at the Art Institute, to which I commuted daily. There were very few students who were eighteen and going to art school during the seventies. Many of the students were Vietnam veterans who were basket cases and could only manage manual tasks because they were fried from the drugs and the war. There was also a lot of older women, many of them divorced, returning to school with dreams of a career. And then there were others who had attended a liberal-arts college first and, for various reasons, decided that they wanted to be artists. Back then you lived in an apartment or, if you were an immigrant kid like me, commuted on the subway. And back then fashion was the thing. Many of the working-class kids did fashion design because it guaranteed them a job. Yet for me and most of my classmates, the mentality was that you made art because that was what you needed to do and the issue of your career was secondary. I never even thought about a career. I thought that I would just ride the academic wave as long as I could and, when that ended, I would get a factory job or whatever could sustain me while I did my work.

These years were also the height of conceptualism, the height of minimalism, and I would spend hours sitting in lectures with Joseph Beuys. Performance art had an influence on a lot of work that was being done at the Art Institute back then, but I never really tapped that vein. Even though I was reared at the height of conceptualism – I was in art school from ’73 to ’78 – I’m not much of a conceptualist. A sort of arrogance accompanies conceptualism, an arrogance that assumes realist painters like Rembrandt had no idea behind their work. This negation of the object is not at all what I admired: I’m a photographer—I love objects.

One of my greatest influences back then was Maya Deren, the avant-garde filmmaker of the forties. The eighteenth century was also rich font of material, and I still love narrative paintings. I was doing a lot of self-portraiture of fabricated scenarios trying to deal with issues of sexuality. It was a time of sexual exploration when I didn’t know anyone who was just straight; it seemed everyone was at least bisexual. As a straight woman, I went to many of Chicago’s huge gay discos, which were still underground at the time. There was also a lot of private disco clubs, but I found the heterosexual disco scene a bit off-putting. Drugs were not my scene either, even though they were all around me. In my circle, the work never came out of the drugs; that was more of the generation before me. I was of the labored, sketching, working variety, as were many of my friends. The drugs were used as more of a release. There was some dope, but it was mostly cocaine.

Art/Photography Credit: Aida Laleian

During the mid-eighties, as a post-graduate, I had a job as a special-effects technician; I learned Rubalit, Photolit, and masking, and I started using these skills in my own work. Before that I was doing very primitive, dodge-and-burn applications. With Photoshop, I began shooting film, scanning it to a computer, manipulating the photograph using the software, and then exporting it back to film to make the prints. I started working digitally in the nineties, but most of the better digital cameras were unaffordable. It was really not until the turn of century that I began shooting digital and printing digital, and even then my first digital camera cost seven-thousand dollars.

Digital photography remains largely in the simulacrum stage of mimicry—it has barely scratched the surface of its unique possibility. I find it ironic that the art world perceives itself as radical when it’s actually conservative. For the past twenty years, photographers have had a panicked resistance to digital photography, saying, “Oh, my God! This is going to compromise the veracity of the photograph, challenge the very premises of photography.” From my end of things, the whole purpose was all about challenging photographic verisimilitude. And photographs have always been manipulated; it just took a little more finesse before. Now, combining twenty or thirty negatives is nothing in comparison, but you still have to have some very basic drawing abilities in order to work in Photoshop; you still have to know proportion, you still have to know how shadows fall. I look at advertisements and am amazed at how poorly some of them are done without any understanding of these things. But, that said, there’s this other phenomenon in which, regardless of how savvy the viewer becomes, he is still seduced by that image. Even though he recognizes the image as a manipulation, he remains willing to suspend disbelief and engage with the illusion that is being created. People just sarcastically say, “Oh, that’s a photograph. It’s so easy to manipulate.” And they simultaneously embrace this reality. I really don’t know when that is going to end, but consider what it will mean for the medium.

As an example, take Hadley’s “Loss.” Seven knotted pillars jut out of the sea and bask in the warm glow of the sun. While their purpose is not initially clear, their impact on the viewer lacks no strength. The pristine sky blending seamlessly into the sea establishes a distinct foundation for the subjects of the foreground. It does for the seven pillars what a blank canvas would for several thick stripes of charcoal, or what a stage would do for seven spindly ballerinas gathering en pointe into a memorable feat of geometry. As we shift our concentration from the background and into the foreground, we notice that the seven pillars are positioned in a rather curious arrangement.

The three pillars farthest to the left, like the two pillars in the back row on the right, all angle themselves towards the pillar that stands front-and-center of the remaining six. The pillar in the front row to the right of the center pole seems to be angled towards the right, the opposing direction, slightly away from the center pillar. It appears that the five pillars standing behind and to the left of the front two adopt an almost reverential pose, as if mimicking that of six virgins mesmerized, say, by Odysseus on the beach. The ambivalent pillar, facing away from the center one, seems like the ever-present Penelope, always forefront in the mind of her husband, ignoring the advances of both his and her respective suitors. While the position of the pillars is important to consider, they may, of course, have been placed in a completely arbitrary manner.

Crusted and lanky, these seven figures may be poles to which fishing boats are tied—a distant image signaling shore and safety for a weary fisherman at the end of his day at sea. Yet a second glance shows this to be an unlikely possibility, since the seven poles are both too close to shore and too close together to leave room for multiple boats. Another possibility may be that the seven poles stand in memory of lost loved ones. Given the title of the piece, “Loss,” each pillar may represent a fallen family member—and the close arrangement of the staggered pillars, as well as the absence of other such structures in the distance, may indeed attribute this memorial to a family in the region. Moreover, the absence of other pillars suggest that this is either a more recent tradition or a less common tradition than utilizing a land cemetery to commemorate the dead—though the appearance of the wood, and Italy’s cultural awareness of its history, makes the former possibility the likelier. For example, if these pillars stand as memorials, they may be used to remember the fallen members of a fishing family by preserving the memory of their love for the sea. This would fill the same function as scattering the ashes of a loved one in a place that once had significance in their life.

Whether or not the title is a hint as to the purpose of the seven pillars, our uncertainty of the photograph gives us an opportunity to use our imagination to construct our own stories about the seven pillars. In a season when imagination sometimes seems to be the last thing on an adult’s mind, it is important to remember that sometimes, when we least expect it, the reality of our world can surprise us and re-instill a feeling of a happy mystery. It is not quite the feeling of believing in Santa as we did when we were young, but it does allow us, even for just a moment, to be charmed.

To see more of Amy’s work, you can visit the Galerie or her website here.

Mikayla: Your transition from dance to painting is so seamless. How do you remember leaving your own studio and twenty plus years of dance for life as a painter?

Amy: I have vivid memory of looking in the mirror in the dance studio while choreographing. I had a sudden realization that the moves I was imagining would make for a better painting than a dance. I didn’t pursue art then of course, but I knew that what was in my head was a visual thing not a kinesthetic thing. I still feel like I making movement.

M: It’s one thing to admire the movement in automobiles as in a race and then translating this to a canvas. For you, though, you lived through your movements, and translating physical passion to a static medium seems like quite a leap.

A: Translating a passion for dance to one for painting was very easy for me; the movement was so ingrained in me. It’s in my body; I see it in everything.

M: Is there something you get from painting that you didn’t get out of dance?

A: I don’t get injuries—it’s kinder to my body. And I love the quiet. Owning a company and having rehearsal space was wonderful, but does not offer me the retreat that painting does. I’m alone in my studio now.

M: The converse of that question: What did dance offer you that painting cannot?

A: Being within a movement captures the essence of something beyond ourselves. It’s a high.

M: As a former dancer myself, the greatest reward was the performance that came after long months of training. Now that you are featured in a few galleries, is the reward the same feeling of pride?

A: When I hang a show, I get the butterflies like I did just before I went on stage. I can’t hide now; I’m out in the open. Performance is total confrontation with the world.

M: Following the integration of yourself with the rest of the world, is there an equivalent to the applause of the audience when you sell a piece, or when someone says they are moved by your work?

A: For me, it’s a factor of time. When people tell me, after seeing my work everyday hanging in their home, that they still get so much joy out of it, the joy is perpetually repeated. A dance performance only happens once, but a painting can be integrated into someone’s daily life and continually please them. That thrills me, the difference of ephemera and permanency.

M: Do you paint out of a preference for something?

A: I never set out to paint a particular subject. As a modern dancer, I’m used to improvising and that’s exciting for me. Last week, I had a painted a friend’s dog and was using a photograph as a guide. That was much harder for me; I didn’t like the pressure to capture something as it is.

M: Tell me more about that.

A: Well, I just never do it. My body was never perfect; it was not anatomically correct for a dancer but I made it work. It gave me a unique style.

M: And no doubt this method of improvisation has translated. Tell me about your process.

A: Well, I like to get real messy sometimes and muck up the canvas with dried paint crust and all sorts of lines and bands of color—chaos, basically. Then I go back and look to see what’s there and if I notice something within it, I’ll take a piece of white chalk and sketch the shapes hidden in the texture.

M: You’re very brave.

A: Texture is so important to me. Working on a pristine, clean, empty surface bores me.

M: Isn’t that essentially what a stage is?

A: (laughs) That’s very good! And when I danced, it scared me off! Now, I can add things and sculpt my way into a painting.

M: Your entire process sounds like it’s fluid and ongoing like a dance. You have fine control over your tools, as a dancer does his or her body. It’s importantly not rigid, and I think that quality is special. A lot of other painters do not have so smooth of a flow.

A: I’m working with a lot of unknowns, and I’m used to that as a choreographer. I never know exactly what I’m doing as the painting unfolds – that’s unnerving – but I keep going. I just have to go with it, work at it until it feels right.

M: So you take a graceful leap into the darkness and hope you’ll land?

A: I have to trust that I’ll land somewhere. It’s a rich, fulfilling, worrisome process. You have to tell yourself, “It’s okay not to know the answers.”

To see more of Justin’s work, you can visit the Galerie or his website:
Illujustrate.

Whereas most forms of visual art play with ambiguous symbols to be meaningful, graphic design – which encompasses everything from the development of advertisements to the production of road signs – does not fetishize the interpretive authority of the viewer; in this field, the immediacy of the message is at times a moral imperative (Consider a stop sign whose meaning inspires disagreement). It is telling, then, that Chicago’s Justin Cox is not only a fine artist with classical training but also a studied graphic designer; it is noteworthy that Cox unites the fields of fine art and graphic design in his trademark process, which includes work by hand and computer alike in single projects. This is to say that the issue of the spectator is a troubled fixture of his work—and one piece in particular, “Spectacles,” illustrates this point decisively.

“Spectacles” features a staunch yellow background disrupted by a pair of whiskered, black eyeglasses. Coupled with their central position on the canvas, the glasses’ solitude in the painting prevents the existence of any other focal point. The spectator is not, meanwhile, given the chance to explore the depths and meanings of this piece; its matte finish shuts out any possibility of excavation. What exactly are the spectacles supposed to be spectating?

Often, it is said that the interpretive force by which the viewer penetrates an artwork renders it a reflection of his own identity (This is especially true when he possesses the theoretical temperament). By attempting to intellectualize a piece, the spectator forces the artwork to repeat back to him what he believes the image is doing; he is a self-effacing puppeteer. When confronted with Cox’s eyeglasses and the fact that they are robbed of eyes, the spectator will be moved to say that the piece is commenting on the idea of sight; but there is a blind spot in such criticism. The bright yellow of the canvas stands as a warning against this interpretation—a warning, in general, against forming an interpretation through an inward glance. Its yellow says, “Yield.”

If we cannot dig through the matte, and if the only sign we are given – other than the glasses – is a colorful prohibition of such digging, the roles have been reversed: The painting is penetrating the spectator (The eyeglasses are, of course, looking outwards). As an answer to our question – a line we began to trace in the consideration of Cox’s background – we can say that Cox’s spectacles are looking at us. We instead are the painting’s focal point.

If the spectator is the spectacle of “Spectacles,” then Cox, with a cocked head and a puckered pair of lips, is looking out towards the art world and its appreciators and calling them misguided; especially with this piece, he is also correcting their habits. His work refuses to let the spectator in; his paintings do not offer refuge for the viewer, nor do they offer a convenient commentary on, really, anything. Acting as a simple vehicle for Cox’s criticism of the art world around him, his work conveys a “message” only of the art itself; the meaning is aesthetic.

Refusing to let “Spectacles” and all his other spectacles become, in his judgment, the victims of an intellectual rape, Cox is speaking on nothing else than the typical, theoretical aggressiveness of the spectator and is protesting against the presumed vulnerability of his work. He is, in a sense, a modern-day Sontag.

To see more of Fidel’s work, visit his website:
Fidel Fine Arts.

As soon as they cut your cord, they’ve already got you tagged: Here’s your birth certificate, here’s your social-security number; best of luck, we’ll see you at the funeral. Then you spend your life filling out forms; paying taxes; memorizing home-phone numbers, cell-phone numbers, addresses, passwords, and PINs. By the time you’re an adult, you’ve inextricably weaved yourself into that invisible net of data to which admen, Nielsen execs, and politicians reduce the world and those who inhabit it. These days, life can be a bit dehumanizing.

Fidel Rodriguez wants to offset this dehumanizing calculus. His mission as an artist is to inject the cold and alienating world with a dose of mystical spirituality.

A typical Rodriguez painting begins with a configuration of the data. Numbers and letters are stenciled in clumps or strings, superimposed on the bare landscape or juxtaposed with the human form. Text is as texture: pervasive and reminiscent of the meaningless signs that constantly surround us—advertisements, tabloids, and all other sorts of verbal flotsam. These signs – signs qua signs – achieve a smothering effect, like white noise on the radio. Rodriguez takes this noise and makes it visible, shows it as the impregnable mess it is.

If Rodriguez stopped here, his information-age surrealism would be rather trite. Yet he makes his work his own when he introduces spirituality to the mix. To these data-flooded landscapes he will add any one of many mythical symbols, which he selects from various world religions. Rodriguez is unapologetically catholic in this regard: Angels, roses, a burning column, the eye of God, and even the Buddha grace his canvases. Given the rise of globalization, this eclecticism makes sense; and the strategy falls in line with his stated goal of expressing something universal, of conveying a sense of a deep and abiding spirit.

Life Statistics” exemplifies both these aims of Rodriguez’s work: the representation of information noise and the manifestation of universal spiritual symbols. Over the deep-blue and pale-orange scene of sky and mountains at dawn, Rodriguez stencils a string of numbers beneath a field of overlapping fragments of the alphabet. The chaos of data has settled in the atmosphere like smog, matching identically the blues and oranges of the sky. The indecipherable code bleeds into nature itself. The most interesting element of the composition is undoubtedly that egg, right in the center, marked off from the rest of the canvas by a dark turquoise box. A number of ancient mythologies (Sanskrit, Egyptian, Greek, Roman) establish, in one creation story or another, that the origin of the cosmos was an egg. This cosmic egg represents that unknown thing from which all the universe was hatched—but Rodriguez serves us the egg unbroken. He suggests the ideas of nascence and potentiality but leaves open-ended what precisely is in store. What the future brings we can only suppose.

There is a part of me that wants to read this picture as a hopeful one—the egg’s pure white shell hinting at equally pure contents, the glow of a new day in the background conveying a sense of new possibilities. Nevertheless, I find my pessimistic side winning out in the end. I can’t help noticing that this white shell – really, a shield against the void, a fragile house of nourishment in the midst of a wasteland – must inevitably break, and when it does the innocence it represents will likewise end. More bleakly, I realize that what I’ve been calling dawn may just as well be dusk—the transition not one from night to day, aligning with the theme of birth, but from day to night, ironically undercutting the egg’s serenity. The babe may yet be born not into a world of light but into a world of darkness, dimmed by that indecipherable mass of letters. But wait—I now see that those letters may not be quite so random and indecipherable as I had supposed. Looking again, I see that written plainly in the middle are the letters S, T, O, P. Could this be a warning to the unborn? Stop, change directions, avoid the light at all costs?

This dark message is uncharacteristic of Rodriguez’s work, which tends rather toward sentiments of universal spiritual uplift. Then again, this very distinction may be why I find “Life Statistics” Rodriguez’s most compelling work to date.