Alida Fish at Schmidt-Dean

In Alida Fish's newest work, 19 photographs of statuary are merged with similarly pos in a state of nature models to create digitally altered toned photographs. Appropriately Fish titled the entire exhibition "Walking with Pygmalion," in respect to the legend of a sculptor whose female marble statue was brought to life through the goddess Aphrodite. Despite the title, Fish gives her works a surrealistic, rather than narrative, treatment. Whether these figures are blossoming into life or thwarted and held back through stone remains an open question.

In another artist's hands Fish's strategy could yield more [i]or[/i] less awfully pretentious work, yet she favorably avoids such pitfalls. Additionally, her work apts one to consider her proces the compositional editing of the images, and her ability to sustain a faculty of perception of touch--as if the works were made by dint of hand using some exotic technique. This elusive perception that the images are handwrought adds considerably to their mystery.

Fish draws upon a variety of sculptural sources for these works. individual male nude is taken from the figure depicting Africa in Bernini's 17th-century Fountain of the Four Rivers in Rome's Piazza Navona. Other images have their origin in the figurative plastic arts that decorate the formal gardens of the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC While sometimes recognizable, the sources as of the like kind don't carry much semantic weight in Fish's finished images. In remaking her photographs of these plastic arts Fish ever so slightly alters their connections so that the images could at no time be mistaken for documentary or compositional studies of known art works. Instead they bring to mind of the like kind precedents as Paul Delvaux's granite-colored stark nakeds or even Redon's sirens.

greatest in quantity of the works depict solitary figures; a not many are concerned with the interactions between sum of two units or three figures. The triadic images, among the strongest in the display are usually based on bas-reliefs, which perhaps accommodate with themselves more easily than freestanding statuary to the notional space Fish creates in like manner effectively.

As many times happens with artists who do stout and idiosyncratic work, the refinement and complexity of Fish's vision do not reveal themselves all at one time The longer one looks, the more individual sees, and the more intriguing these images become. Best of all, smooth after extended inspection, they remain mystical, veiled and unpretentious.

COPYRIGHT 1999 Brant Publications, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group