01 Nov 2018

Mira Lehr: Tracing the Red Thread

Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami

Reviewed by Elisa Turner

It's a triumph of metaphorical thinking. Beauty battles violence in astounding paintings and sculpture. With radiant paper flowers and smoky residues of gunpowder, the exhibition space mirrors marine life struggling on South Florida's watery edge. It reveals a delicate coastline aching to counter calamitous forces wrought by endless development and elevated seas.

Visitors wander pathways in Mira Lehr's floor-to-ceiling recreation of mangrove thickets, following its "red thread," a curving rope named for Ariadne's life-saving strand. Like giant calligraphy, Lehr's sculptural forms magnify the life-giving tangle of roots and leaves where land meets sea, nurturing crabs and shrimp, sheltering turtles and manatees. Paintings and sculpture surround it, spotlighting ravaged but still beautiful treasures, infusing hope.

In Magenta Mangrove (2017), singed paper is collaged to a silvery canvas laced with burnt fuses. Akin to mangrove roots, they arise from ashes.