What You See, Unseen

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again and again as they reveal that mysterious
sense of embodiment and the perpetually surprising
ability of inert material to encompass more
than empty form.
On the other end of the spectrum is work that
expresses the profane. It reflects the view that
truth is in everything, rather than its representation.
Such work expresses recognizable subject
matter, gives freedom to the expression of the
senses, and explores the world. Cecily Brown’s
sybaritic painting The Fugitive Kind is a counterpart
to Martin’s White Flower. Brown’s work is
indulgent, excessive and sensual. Her work reflects
our “lower” drives back to us. We are invited to
dive into the pleasure of sense memory and the
entertainment of pure form given force through
spontaneity, originality and surprise. We experience
a sense of reckless abandon and are drawn
to recognize the power and absurdity of the primal
forces that move us in our lives. The way the paint
is handled reflects the spontaneous force of the
subject matter. It provides a charge.
In a contemporary context, Brown’s painting is
“smart” because it draws on abstract expressionism’s
history but is made edgy by the fact that
Brown is a young woman painting representations
of what might be considered pornographic
imagery. Another example of work that has external
sources is that of Tony Fitzpatrick. In his work
entitled, The Other Sister, a work that reads like a
love letter, Fitzpatrick mines his personal history
through artifacts of American popular culture in
order to assemble collages of impressions and
dreams. He embraces symbols of personal icoe
Christina Murdoch Mills