01 Nov 2017

Erin Woodbrey: Leg, Limber, Lumber, Limb

Higgins Art Gallery, Tilden Arts Center at Cape Cod Community College

Reviewed by John Pyper

To paraphrase Auden, reading an artwork is an experience analogous to encountering the artist somewhere else. Erin Woodbrey's sculptures, photos, installations, and rock collection analyze and present the non-material experience of place. Fragmented porcelain simulacra embody transitory flashes of cloth and paper. Photographs (enhanced by charcoal drawing) bring us to her erstwhile landscapes. Light beams create hot spots on lush reflective surfaces. Stones weigh down the artist's pockets. Her grandmother's hobo neighbors abandon the shack in the woods as the laws change. Only thing left behind are their enamel pots.

Fragments can illuminate the permanent things in our lives like no other object. The missing nose makes the Roman emperor's bust that much more powerful. The narratives we read into a place's past heighten the potential of this moment. Woodbrey's work writes poems that Auden might love. They "speak quietly, but do not mumble."