Art Lies, Volume 51, Summer 2006 Page: 120

                                
PORTLAND ,vlLvv

Ellen George
PDX Contemporary Art
Namita Gupta Wiggers
Ellen George's work has a luscious, succulent qual-
ity. Using hand-pigmented polymer clay, George is
at her best when she creates small sculptures that
reveal a strange world of her own design. The var-
ied visual vocabulary on view at PDX showcases a
broad range of grouped objects-from small bio-
morphic forms to sterile cylinders, to vaguely edi-
ble ball shapes and explicitly formal studies.
The central work in this exhibition is George's
Inching series, a formal examination of the physi-
cal properties of the continuous line articulated in
a series of coiled and stacked forms. Constituting
about one fourth of the exhibition, the message
that George is moving in a new direction is clear;
why she has chosen this direction, however, is not.
George's Inching series reminds me of the joyful
childhood activity of making bright coils out of
Play-Doh; mediated and seemingly encased colors
gently blend from purples to reds or glow with an
icy blue coolness. Configurations, stacl<ings and
arrangements vary-a cone here, a boat or vessel
there-and I quickly found this device repetitive.
It reminded me of a story of two men discussing
Barnett Newman's "zip" paintings: the first man
complains about how the paintings lookedd the
same," and the second asks questions about the
colors, location of the stripes, etc., to clarify that
the works are, in fact, quite varied. The sheer scale
of Newman's larger-than-life paintings requires you
to move around-to back up quite far to take them
in. This is a vastly different experience than leaning
over small shelves to ponder Inching. Here, moving
one's eyes over and across the forms doesn't offer
a rich experience because there is no punch, ges-
ture or range of things to engage. The connecting
line doesn't work like a "zip," breaking up spans of
color or, in this case, forms.
Where Newman's "zips" send you into reflec-
tion, George's Inchings are flat formal exercises.
There is no sense of animation, yet animation is
where George's biomorphic minimalism is stron-
gest. Blowy (2), for example, evokes a sense that a
change in the wind's direction would give us a new
silhouette to ponder. Even pinned to the wall like
specimens, the works Mode, Gentle Blue and Tissue
feel as though life has just left them, their shadows
a reminder of the potential movement the objects
may have had at one time.
Formality does succeed, however, in Valley
Folds (yellow) and Baby Doll, in part because color

is fully integrated with form. Spreading clay to

17          A
Ellen George, Baby Doll, 2006
Polymer clay; 17 objects
Photo by Bill Bachhuber
enhance its translucent qualities, the placement of
Valley Folds in front of a window highlights these
delicately tinted and crimped sculptures. Baby
Doll is simultaneously appealing and repulsive-a
grouping of puckered, candy-sized forms in a range
of fleshy skin tones.
The diminutive scale of George's work makes
it hard not to think about miniaturization, and
the miniature implies a larger object upon which
it is based. Susan Stewart argues in On Longing:
Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the
Souvenir, the Collection (1993) that "There are
no miniatures in nature; the miniature is a cul-
tural product." Blowy (2) is a strong work because
it is evocative, not derivative, of natural forms.

SL1. I

.  5
40a

Ellen George, Red Inching No. 6, 2006
Polymer clay
21/4 x 40 inches
Photo by Bill Bachhuber
By contrast, the Inching series feels like a minia-
turization of childhood creations. The cylindrical
Green & Yellow Starts recall a different kind of cul-
tural product: Eva Hesse's Repetition Nineteen III
(1968) rendered in fiberglass, polyester and resin.
Divergent in scale and use of color, both artists
merge organic forms and minimalism in particu-
lar and striking ways, specifically, the use of simi-
lar vessel forms with skinlike textural qualities. The
sensation that Starts feels like a miniaturization
of Hesse's sculptures raises important questions
about how critics engage George's work. Is sculp-
ture on such a minute scale inherently a reduction
or is there a way to discuss smaller works that
does not resort to a referencing of the miniature?
Even with the sophisticated addition of pig-
ment and the refined miniaturization of the coil-
ing and stacking process, the toylike quality of
George's work is hard to escape. This is in part its
appeal and also its limitation. The palette is playful
and the objects are very small. We want them to
come to life. When our beloved toys seemed able
to come to life, we loved them best, and this is the
case with George's work as well.

120 ARTL!ES Summer 2006