Review

"Blue Beard's Wife Eating a Pomegranate", Colored Pencil, Gouache and Paper Collage on Board.

JP Morrison
Beguiled: The Folklore of Women

11 a.m.-4 p.m.

The Base Gallery
2012 Baltimore (Downstairs)
Kansas City, MO
816.398.8109

Hours: 11 a.m.-4 p.m.
Runs through: Sept. 28

Artist's site: http://www.jpmorrison.net
Gallery site: http://www.thebasegallery.com

In many areas of life and daily living, ambiguity is something to be avoided. It matters whether the light is red or green, whether or not you have enough to cover dinner and the tip, whether the sign at the DMV reads "OPEN" or "CLOSED".

In art, though, it's often the undefined elements that make or break a piece -- or an entire show. Show people too much, lead them by a figurative hand, and an artist can spoil the sense of discovery that creates an emotional bond between the viewer and the work.

Beguiled: The Folklore of Women, JP Morrison's show at The Base Gallery, is loaded with the best sort of ambiguity: the sort which hints, compels, sets one hook after another.

A knowledge of mythology and fairy tales isn't necessary to enjoy the work, but it does deepen the possible interpretations.

Take the woman in today's featured piece, Blue Beard's Wife Eating a Pomegranate. She could be one of the villain's first seven wives, blissfully unaware that she is eating her last meal ... or the eighth, savoring a delicacy purchased with the riches she inherited.

Then there's the deer-headed man in Hunter's Kiss, who could be a forest spirit with a few tricks to play on the unwary traveler -- or Actaeon beginning the transformation that leads to his demise, all because he caught the wrong deity unclad by night.

Morrison, a Kansas City Art Institute graduate now living in Tulsa, illustrates all of her possible stories in a rich style that is both realistic and dreamlike. Her characters are devoid of abstraction, which has the effect of heightening the fantastic elements in her mixed-media works. There's a sense that even the smallest details -- the drape of a scarf, the spacings in a strand of pearls, the ripples of muscle beneath pale skin -- are loaded with significance. 

It's work that draws the viewer back for one more look, then another. Each repeated viewing is rewarded with more visual cues -- clues, perhaps, to new or deeper interpretations.

All of this raises the question: Who's being beguiled here -- the people in Morrison's works, or those viewing them?

The answer is, of course, "Yes."

Ambiguous? Perhaps. But here ... that's a good thing.

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