Exhibition News: Priscilla Fusco opens Nov 7
This November, Norte Maar presents a solo exhibition of new works by Priscilla Fusco in a show titled “Dark Pool.” This exhibition brings back NM’s cutting-edge exhibition series hosted at its Cypress Hills location.
Known for her mixing of mythology within odd sculptural objectness, in this recent work @prosciutto_fusco indulges in biology while referencing the underbelly of shady financial trading. The exhibition explores two bodies of work in clay: wall mounted two-dimensional pieces the artist calls “tablets” and free-standing three-dimensional works the artist calls “commodities.”
“Tablets” mix biological elements like bones, mushrooms, and roe, with contemporary symbols such as corporate logos and typesets of historical significance like the German Schwabacherfont, which was banned by the Nazis for being too “Jewish,” or the Roman typeface from antiquity. These “Tablets,” rectilinear in shape, barely contain the automatic free-forming compositions are accentuated by the surreal.
“Commodities,” is an ongoing series involving the form of teeth converted into jewelry, curtains and tableware. Borrowing from the jaws of animals ranging from the hippopotamus to the shark, each fabricated tooth is unique. Understanding that first evolutionary line of defense in predatory survival is the bite, the artist presents these forms for reliquary purposes—to be venerated in the manner of a Catholic icon.
In both these bodies of work, Fusco captures several historical craft techniques for clay, including agate / marbling, carving and relief. These techniques play wonderfully at the hands of an artist that is known for her embrace of the macabre and mysterious.
