What is Beauty? Perhaps more than anything else it can be said that it connects us with the mystery of being, and that experiencing beauty gives us purpose. Symmetry, proportion and harmony are associated with a universal philosophy of aesthetics and a rational understanding of beauty. Yet, beauty also sheds light on something within us that is greater than nature – that we are not just rational creatures but also spiritual ones seeking a higher state of existence.
In this time when humanity is struggling with the physical and emotional impact of a global pandemic, we yearn for the freedom of hope and to once again find beauty in our lives. What could be more liberating than having that desire fulfilled?
For the inaugural exhibition at its Cranford, NJ gallery space, Filo Sofi Arts presents Shrine to Beauty – a philosophical investigation of beauty, curated by Kourosh Mahboubian, with selected works of art by Kimberly Camp, Ford Crull, T.M. Glass, Indie 184, Ana Garces Kiley, and Iris Scott.
This exhibition presents us with the possibility that art can possess intrinsic properties that make it objectively and universally beautiful, as determined through reasoned analysis, while simultaneously being subjectively perceived as beautiful, through the eye of the individual
beholder, without logical explanation. Shrine to Beauty also offers the idea that we can reach that higher state of being through art, if only because the art is beautiful. Where the show, as a collective, is a shrine to the philosophical understanding of beauty, within each individual work exists a shrine the artist has created to a different, higher purpose. In it are hidden layers of perceptual, intellectual and emotional context. Here, we see the ever-present connotation that an association exists between beauty and moral value. We are left grappling with questions most eloquently expressed in a verse from Baudelaire’s Hymn to Beauty: “Are you from heaven or hell, Beauty that we adore?”. As a show, these works give us an immediate sensation of “wow” and pleasure, in a manifestation of “the sublime” – that feeling one experiences when confronted with an awe-inspiring sunset at the Grand Canyon, a particularly moving piece of music, or even being caught in a lightning storm. One by one, however, the pieces tell different stories. They are beautiful, but they also communicate deeper and sometimes darker truths.
Kimberly Camp’s shamanistic dolls appear to be whimsical, magical creatures, dressed up in fanciful outfits and so playful in their demeanor that, at first glance, one might liken them to cute, cuddly toys. However, looking past the outer layer of whimsy and glamour, we find allusions to the historic struggles for dignity, equality and basic human rights faced by women, African-Americans, and other minority groups. Even in their adornment, using beads that were once traded for slaves’ lives, Ms. Camp transforms the instruments of our ugliest acts into symbols of strength and beauty.
Ford Crull’s paintings are crafted with such deliberately complex, harmonious and balanced compositions that one might easily claim they are universally and objectively beautiful. Beneath the strength of his compositions lie emotional and spiritual undertones that also imbue the works with a surreal quality. We find layers of dramatic internal oppositions derived from purposeful dualisms. Within his abstractions one can find expressions of the intuitive (mystical vs. pragmatic), the sexual (male vs. female) and the formal (line vs. tone, light vs. color). We are left with the feeling that we might be looking at a scene from some sort of fantastical paradise.
T.M. Glass’s large format photographs of flowers are at once larger than life and more painterly than one would expect from photography. The initial impression might be that you are looking at a Dutch or Flemish old master painting. Employing radial symmetry, Glass’ compositions reflect universal principles of aesthetics relative to the ‘Golden Mean’, also known as the Fibonacci sequence. They adhere to a perfect mathematical pattern. That alone, though, is not what makes them beautiful. Glass brings up another Baudelaire quote: “The beautiful is always strangely familiar and vaguely surprising.” With their simplicity and pervasiveness in our lives, flowers are universally accessible and accepted as beautiful, yet we never cease to be surprised at the pleasure they give us. Like the flowers themselves, Glass’ works give us pleasure.
Indie 184’s multimedia paintings combine brightly colored, cheerful graffiti and pop-culture patterns with iconic photographs of movie stars, historic figures and celebrities – most of them beautiful, powerful women. The paintings invariably evoke pleasure. Beneath the immediate aesthetic impact of her work, however, lie messages of defiance. Graffiti is a defiant act by nature, but combining it with images of famous beautiful women the artist can make further associations between power, beauty, femininity and defiance of the existing order. Indie 184 shows us the vision of a world where beautiful, strong, independent women stand up to our white male dominated social order.
Ana Garces - Kiley’s artworks consist of three-dimensional paintings on textile and soft, painted sculptures. In their translucent, layered consistency they appear as dreamy, depictions of deeply personal or natural experiences. The lace-like renderings of some of her human figures appear upon closer examination to be made up of repetitive patterns of house flies, borrowing the vulgar yet ethereal quality of the flies to inform the etherealness and impermanence of her subjects. Her reds, deeply evocative of menstrual blood, imbue her work with both a sense of visual energy and one of a feminine, nurturing comfort. She takes the unsettling imagery of natural experiences like sex, menstruation, birth and death and gives it a sense of purity, turning it into the beautiful.
Iris Scott calls herself an instinctualist. She strives to create beautiful work that is free of conceptual elements, so as to create a purely perceptual, sublime experience when the viewer first sees it. Yet, within her expertly crafted, figurative paintings, there are still underlying meanings behind the beauty she creates. It is filled with fantasy and with goodness. She paints a world she would like to live in – one that is naturally perfect and beautiful, but one that does not exist except in the ideal. She asks us to dream with her, reminding us that, while our physical world is not in that realm, perhaps if we tried hard enough, we could envision it that way.