28/5/2008
Fanny Bostrom
31Grand, New York
Picnic. In these paintings of multi-level landscapes we find forts and cabins replete with oddly shaped windows and porches. Lilliputian figures, each preoccupied with their own mission, are scattered across these structures that are set upon cleaved hills and divided by deep ravines.
For her first solo exhibition with 31GRAND, Swedish-born Artist Fanny
Bostrom has selected the succinct, if not facile, title Picnic. Upon
entering the transformed gallery space one cannot help but feel as though
they¹ve crossed a threshold into Ms. Bostrom¹s cosmology that is comprised
of paintings, drawings, cut-paper silhouettes, sculptures and a mixed media
installation. Instead of recreation, respite and rural pace, we¹re
surrounded by a frenzy of activity both in terms of the multiple art forms
she has employed as well as the multiple renderings of mad productivity that
figure heavily in her work.
It would seem that Ms. Bostrom is playing the term Œpicnic¹ in two
directions. At first glance, her own prolific preparations seems to invoke
the old adage - life¹s no picnic and implies that leisure is a luxury; yet
her images simultaneously foreground bustling scenes within naturalized
landscapes that are made inhabitable, even cozy, through the activities that
take place therein.
In her paintings of multi-level landscapes we find, what appear to handmade
homes, forts and cabins replete with oddly shaped windows and porches.
Lilliputian figures, each preoccupied with their own mission, are scattered
across these structures that are set upon cleaved hills and divided by deep
ravines. These nascent figures seem to possess neither the time nor
interest in facing one another, their only concern is the task at hand,
which may include: smoking a pipe, climbing a ladder, burrowing into a hill,
climbing a tree. They ceaselessly fish and forage in search of what
exactly, we cannot easily deduce.
The few figures that are strung together by telephone yarn appear more
distanced than connected and like worker ants, they belong more to a colony
than a community. If there is a queen, it is not one single being, but
perhaps the supernatural cross-eyed owl, a symbol of nature and wisdom,
which hovers above.
While her paintings and silhouettes are colorful, there is a flatness that
pervades Fanny Bostrom¹s work. Despite the painstaking detail of texture
provided in her drawings, each scene is drained of color and contorted in
scale. Mythical pathologies shift as the frantic do-it-yourself
Lilliputians turn into cannibalistic Amazonians roasting sausages on open
fires. Amidst the kitschy domesticity of cabin life and the wide-eyed
cartoon animals lurks a sinister undertone that we more commonly associate
with outsider art. Like many outsider artists, Bostrom is self-taught and
her own urgent faith in activity is made manifest by her ambition to set
herself to task. Like the people that populate her images Ms. Bostrom is
working in every direction possible with extreme focus. Again, in search of
exactly what, we cannot easily deduce, but it will be interesting to see
what she does next.
- J. Malac, 2008
Reception: Thursday, May 29, 7-9pm
31Grand
143 Ludlow Street - New York
hours: Tues. - Sat. 12-7pm
free admission