• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

EUTOPIA

contemporary art review

  • About
    • About
    • Submissions
  • Reviews
  • Archive
  • Show Search
Hide Search

PLURAL: Beth Cavener

Linda Ganstrom · Apr 2, 2014 ·

PLURAL: two authors review one work.
Linda Ganstrom and Ryder Richards.

Tangled_full front-800

Beth Cavener
Tangled Up in You [2014]
ceramic, acrylic
Tattoos designed and painted by Alessandro Gallo

Tangled Up in You by Beth Cavener hangs suspended, gently swaying. Gripping a thick rope, the snake strives to consume a large captive hare depicting a conflict with no resolution, a psychological state powered by tremendous emotion. Elegant tattoo patterns illustrate this story of conflict, striving and beauty on the skin of the snake in subtle blue on blue, adding to the watery aesthetic. Requiring the intent viewer to follow the muscular movement of the snake around the tortured hare to read the tattoo, the careful observer is rewarded with secret insight as they decipher the poetic symbolism.

~ Linda Ganstrom

The huddled hare, compressed and dangling within the constrictive musculature of a serpent, appears placidly composed, resigned to fate. As if stunned by the shear beauty of the tableau it inhabits the hare’s concession seems poignant, a willing partner seductively bound into complacency by a highly narrative, writhing design. A superficial ploy, the graphic storyline applied with dexterity introduces an intoxicating lure to which we fall prey. Referencing Aesop’s hare, Chinese ceramics, and Japanese tattoos the piece presents confused moral metaphors of entwined cultures, and a common conundrum: high craft as trap, from which there is no desire to escape.

~ Ryder Richards

Tangled_detail1-1k

Tangled_backview-800

  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)

Related

art, plural, wrtiting alessandro gallo, beth cavener, ceramic, NCECA, plural

Primary Sidebar

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Tumblr
  • Twitter

Recent Reviews

  • Gohar Dashti
  • Rolf Nowotny
  • Neo Rauch
  • Urs Fischer
  • Erin M. Riley
  • Buster Graybill
  • Egon Schiele and Francesca Woodman
  • Takashi Murakami

to receive updates

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

© 2019 · EUTOPIA · Established in 2014

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.