Venture to Pence Gallery

Leslie Show- Karen (Black Bile)

I recently meandered around the Pence Gallery in downtown davis. From the two story building there were many pieces of artwork that were beautiful, but only one actually caught my attention enough to stop me from my mindless wandering. The piece was called Karen (Black Bile) by Leslie Shows. The picture honestly looked like what was the beginning of a black tornado with incredibly dark coloration dead center of the swirled structure. The saliency of the piece was the cut out magazine pictures scattered within the swirl and compiled at the bottom of the painting. There is an interesting mixture of form- this black bile, non-representational cloud with representational art in the form of tangible products that we see in day to day life, i.e a bottle of clorox and piles of clothing commenting on the cluttering nature of humans in general.

The beauty in this piece lies in the juxtaposition between the use of non-representational and representational subjects. Without the representational art forms, we may think that the Black Bile is just some random ominous cloud without a purpose. However, with the added pieces of day-to-day objects thrown in and around the cloud, falling to the bottom, Shows’ art raises questions about ethics. How so? Originally meant “the search for the good life”, ethics, in practice, means “the pursuit of morally correct behavior and recognition of the impact of our actions”. The meaning of ethics raises even more questions based on how we live and how our decisions and actions impact our surroundings. Karen (Black Bile) highlights awareness about human impact on the environment and society in general. A good thing? Highly unlikely since there cut-outs of trash, junk food, harsh chemicals, skulls (indicating death), and other recognizable images cluttered and scattered about the canvas.

The social commentary on how humans are filling their bodies and lives with garbage and bleeding out onto the planet, is a silent, yet highly significant protest. The use of a non-representational black cloud against colorful cut-out images is a clever juxtaposition- humans are interesting creatures that like to color their world with consumerism only to end up cluttering their lives and inadvertently destroy their natural habitat. Show definitely raises questions of ethics and social responsibility: the lack of care and negligence to our body and habitat- where has this led us?