Nesting Instinct
Nesting Instinct – Jean Reece Wilkey
November – December 2013
There is a correlation between our self-awareness and how we relate to the natural world. The preoccupations of modern society can alienate us from our internal worlds and the world of nature. This is reflected in the impact of our modern lifestyle on both the environment and ourselves.
My work explores metaphoric conversations between real and fake versions of the natural world as a means for understanding the human spirit and psyche. In my paintings, nests become architecture sheltering unexpected objects or manufactured versions of animals. Manufactured animals, such as chocolate bunnies, become substitutes for real ones, or become anthropomorphized within the narrative of the work. In juxtaposing “real” and fake versions of natural elements, along with imagery drawn from art historical references, kitsch and visual culture, I seek to reveal these ideas in a subtle unspecified narrative.
Nesting Instinct – A Review
Becky Hendrick
If you’re paying serious attention these days, it’s no secret that art — like literature, publishing, journalism, social interaction, you name it! — is changing, has changed right out from under us. So artists who insist on cutting the edge now perform, install, make things that are immaterial and impermanent, dissolve boundaries between media and genres; it’s a new world.
That makes looking at and talking about the work of Jean Wilkey a bit problematic; it’s been a while since I’ve even thought about straightforward painting of the realist sort. Not photo-realism, that’s still with us since the lens’ view is a subject worth considering. Wilkey, though, is rare among painters, taking skill — call it talent if you want, since there’s a healthy dose of that, too — to an extraordinary level in small still life renderings. Nary a brushstroke is visible. Not a whit of personal expression is on display. These little paintings demand close-up scrutiny and reward the viewer with head-shaking awe.
Art departments in many progressive universities are riding the Postmodern tide and eliminating (or at least de-emphasizing) traditional drawing and painting in favor of new genres: video, sound, performance, etc. Jean Wilkey’s work goes against that tide and stuns us with their crisp perfection. There is humor in some — “Usurped” —, dark humor in others —“Nested Chrome” —, and plain old-fashioned psychological darkness in others — “Repose.” What elevates these paintings above “mere” talent and skill is her peculiar choice of subject matter, combining Victorian collectibles and other bric-a-brac with fruit and bird nests. She applies her sharp eye and sure brush to brushy nests, peaches and apricots, then an apple appears and one thinks: Magritte? And the questioning begins.
Are there underlying messages and references in these quirky compositions? Are the odd arrangements intentional, arbitrary, conscious, metaphoric, symbolic? But then one studies the images again and remembers one is looking at paint, and all those questions are put on hold while the primary question — how the heck does she DO this??? — takes over.
Sometimes paintings and other art works don’t quite make the transition from “reality” to “virtual”, and others are too easily manipulated and adjusted (skill and talent now being what program to use, what button to push) that their digital images falsify the material “thing.” Wilkey may be one of the rare artists whose work does translate to the screen without too much loss. And that will be our gain.
-Becky Hendrick, La Union NM
Becky Hendrick is an artist, writer, and educator. A painter for more than 40 years, with works in many private and museum collections, Hendrick recently retired from the Department of Art at the University of Texas at El Paso. With her husband, sculptor Willie Ray Parish, she hosts the Border Art Residency on the couple’s property in La Union, New Mexico. She divides her time between the borderland of Texas/New Mexico and Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, Mexico.
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