Exhibition Text
At an artists’ residency in rural Southwest Wisconsin in 2015, a group of residents (mostly white) were having a conversation about race. One of them remarked, “Sometimes I wish I could just wake up, go to the studio, and paint flowers,” insinuating that because of their own personal politics, gender, race, etc., they had an ethical obligation to make work about those issues—that somehow identity had precluded beauty as a subject matter. Coincidentally, that same morning, Flor Flores had woken up, gone to the studio, and painted flowers.
Whether seen as evasive, defiant, or a tongue-in-cheek nod to their maternal surname, Flores’s flowers (and other subjects) aren’t shy about beauty. Their soft, airy surfaces and playful gestures joyfully proclaim their loveliness without remorse. In a delicate process that involves transferring pastel drawings from one surface to another, they also suggest the intimacy of relationships—both romantic and platonic—an idea strengthened by the fact that many of the flower images were sourced from text messages sent to Flores by their friends.
Combining the benign genres of still-life and gestural abstraction, Flores calls attention to the perceived neutrality of these traditions—a privileged non-position most often enjoyed by white, middle/upper-class persons. Their claim on these subjects challenges assumptions about artists’ prescribed roles and, moreover, asks us to reexamine the notion that formalist work is inherently apolitical.
Review by
All of the rectangular-canvas and stretched-paper works by Flor Flores hang in the ADDS DONNA space at one upper sight line. This installation peculiarity causes larger pieces, such as “Cosmos, Tall and Wiry,” a highlight of the exhibition, to hang below a familiar height and smaller works to perch oddly just above eye level. Flores uses floral pastel transfers and gestural painting, referencing historically privileged artistic genres, to pursue a casual beauty. By repurposing the goals of still life, the artist works against genre to address personal and moral obligations of identity through their daily experiences of intimacy, both platonic and otherwise.
The heavy notion of simply painting flowers being a choice only afforded to the privileged aside, the everyday origins of the exhibition’s source material give the work its power of evocative affection. The works’ layered compositions resonate more when one learns that their sources are images sent to Flores in text messages from friends. For example, the heavy, pink and green marks in the foreground of the exhibition’s namesake, “Early Roses,” weight the abstractions in archived communication. These touch gestures appear again in the aforementioned “Cosmos, Tall and Wiry” in reds and blues reminiscent of the self-consciously limited color palettes of apps. In four soft pastel works entitled “Hugs?,” “Nook,” “Left” and “Leaves,” the Abex phone screen finger flicks are absent, but the repeated image of lush, blossoming roses serves to isolate one component of the source material, while works like “play-ground” double down on color and movement, to say nothing of poetry.
For an artist to pursue beauty for the sake of itself in a rebellious way seems antithetical to contemporary consciousness, but “Early Roses Filled with Late Snow” achieves a caustic self-awareness that fulfills the goals of still life while pushing the genre forward with passion. (Ryan Filchak)
Flor Flores’ “Early Roses Filled with Late Snow” shows through March 4 at Adds Donna, 3252 West North.
