26 Apr 2018

Juliette Dumas: Angels

Silas Von Morisse Gallery

Reviewed by William Corwin

The scars of a life find their way from the depths of the abyss, inscribed on the fluke of the leviathan, into our space. Dumas chooses the tail of the cetacea as her muse, an appendage that is already used by marine biologists to identify individual animals. The tail is a tabula rasa covered with the marks of shark attacks and fisherman's hooks. Every one is different.

The artist retranscribes this natural calligraphy onto a layer of clay and pigment, where it takes on a glyphic quality like the images and markings on Paleolithic cave walls, undecipherable but still dripping with meaning. While monochromatic, the depth of the scratches in the clay surface hold the eye and lead the viewer through the artist's narrative: all three monumental Whale Fluke paintings, Le Grande Bleu, Night, and Large Whale (all 2018), are interpretations of the same creature, a fact that becomes apparent to us as we learn to read flukes.