Narrative?
This
is a piece taken from a larger piece. The coloration is simple, a background
in one color and a design in another. The pattern is floral and sometimes
there is a bird. The design is modeled, only slightly. The title, 'toile'
helps to orient the pattern to the cloth (toile de jouy) that was painted
with romantic scenes from the eighteenth century. The cloth, often used as
wall coverings called up visions from beyond the walls, just as frescoes had
done or the large tapestries of the Renaissance. The little scenes depicting
leisure settings for gracious lifestyles give the illusion of an endless
repetition of perfect gardens where nature is ruled in and instead of the
awkward crooks and curves of untamed wilderness, the flora and fauna are
unruffled, designed and veering close to geometrics. These designs were
placed on daily objects, cups, bowls, window boxes, fabric for dresses, book
covers, tables and chairs. Women, home bound and beautifying decorated their
lives. They painted landscapes and flowers. Judith Jurica's choice of
'toile' as title and subject was not without suggestions and subliminal
references. Jurica has painted gardens with the hand of an Emily Carr,
planting stone sculptures of Venus within the verdurous growth. Now she has
gone one step further with her subtle feminism. She is painting just a
portion of a garden, once removed from reality. She is painting that place
where women have imagined something beyond their walls or their bolts of
fabrics. She is depicting a piece taken from a larger piece that means far
more than a flower or a designed bird.
Like wallpaper patterns from Europe or charming oil cloths from Mexico, the
simple statement of a patch of design pulled from a larger whole, is a
loaded one. It evokes a gender bias (part of a woman's world) and the words
that have described shut-ins and their relationships to the wallpaper. We
can enlarge upon the segment we are given and make more of it than that
which is physically before us. We can attribute origin and ethnicity. Closer
inspection of the broad backgrounds and bold patterns shows that they are
alive, bouncing with the energy of the rendering, pencil crayoned backdrops
and lines that have been left by the traces of Judith Jurica's consciousness
as she rounded the curve or jabbed at the angles.
Copyright © 2006, Headbones Gallery, The Drawers
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