In the News

jul/aug 2009
vol 3 issue 6

NEW YORK

Judith Page at Lesley Heller Gallery

by Chris Bors

Although Lesley Heller Gallery's Viewing Room space is quite confining, Brooklyn-based artist Judith Page presented some of her strongest work to date in a variety of media. The most striking of the two-dimensional works, Karen (in Karbala), from The Mouseketeers in Iraq (2004) and Cubby (In Camp Babylon) (2004) have bright pink tar gel blobs resembling a toxic pox that are in sharp contrast with the dense black graphite rendering of the figures, which are little more than silhouettes. Focusing on the human condition as her subject matter for the past 25 years, with these works Page highlights the absurdity of her childhood television stars being thrust into present-day Vietnam that is former president George W. Bush's greatest folly.

Of the sculptures on view, August 2 (Sting House)(2008) was the largest and the most successful, showing a promising direction with a well-crafted assemblage of found material. Part of the series "365 Dumb Days," which is a sculptural diary put together from objects amassed throughout Page's life, consists of a fan owned by her father with a smashed teddy bear mounted on canvas covered with media in the middle of the blades. A wire spelling out the phrase "ow" upside down is attached on top of the fan, while the cord ends in a pink tar gel covered fabric flower, adding a delicate touch to the cartoony piece. Sitting on a column covered in more pink tar gel, the work begs for interpretation, but the exact nature of Page's covert narrative remains elusive.