Deposition / Nature Mourned

View Study for Deposition

"In Deposition/Nature Mourned the constituent forms are more highly finished, so that the bandaging partially disappears beneath a filed and sanded layer of plaster. The color is a deep, variegated blue-gray. Long and low to the floor, this piece also is made up of two squat, forking uprights, this time cradling a bundle of three long, sagging stemlike forms. Although the title implies that these objects are being brought down for burial, the forms have a budding expansiveness. Set in the damp earth, these cuttings seem as if they might well sprout. The bandaging can also be read as swaddling, the forks as huge hands, making the piece a chthonic mother and child, its forms swollen with life rather than disease. Regeneration seems possible after the purging of fear and loss." – Robert Taplin, Art in America, 1992

"Deposition/Nature Mourned combines mythological and Christian typology in a quest to demystify the cycles of life to cope with physical and psychological trauma. From beneath these withered elements emerge stable, regenerative forces. In the perishing plant, a new seed is born and takes root. The life form regenerates itself - as does the artist, who emerges from the challenges of ilness to engage in the process of healing - the life-renewing energies to be found in creating this art." – Dr. Joan M. Marter, Rituals of Demystification