The Quickening

The Quickening 15
Serigraphy, woodcut, mixed media

I visited the Mclean County Art Center to view Lisa Lofgren's exhibition called 'The Quickening".  They are primarily prints with some mixed media.  The collective is centered around child bearing.  This idea of fostering life is translated into these images in a compelling way that has an uncertainty to them.  These were all collaborative works with students at Middle Tennessee University.  Incorporating fountains, pedestals, flower pots, and livestock are topics involved in various prints while other remain more ambiguous.  In the backgrounds there is branching or extensions of line that speak to expansion.  Expansion to the self, family, and maybe more literally the baby bump. The colors work together very well and have good contrast. This creates a sense of depth that brings the viewer in for further investigation.

The Quickening 3
Serigraphy, woodcut, monotype, mixed media

 Much of this flows together, but there are some aspects that are questionable in related content.  I do not understand the incorporation of Japanese style and imagery.  She states it is because she is learning Japanese, but i do not see the relation to child birth.  Besides the very distinct imagery it is hard to relate some of these things to Lisa's content.  This could be because it was created in the form of collaboration, but it just seems like these different forms of imagery were slapped together and given a main theme.  There are obviously connections, but i feel this exhibition could have been more true to this and maybe in turn could have been more successful.   This is said to play to physical and emotional aspects of bearing a child.  Although i do not know the feats of bearing a child my guess is that most of the students that collaborated with this do not either.  I could be wrong, but it is hard to say that these are genuine psychological and physical interpretations to bearing a child.  I do think that the majority of these works do work very well together compositionally, but i do think some are a bit of a stretch to the supposed content.

The Quickening 9
Serigraphy, monotype, mixed media

The Quickening 11
Serigraphy, stamping, mixed media

The Quickening 12
Serigraphy, mixed media