Martha Posner

Martha Posner, Skin of My Beast, oilstick, honey, synthetic hair, and graphite on Arches paper, 74" x 45" x 3". Photo by Robert Walch, courtesy of the artist. © 2001, by the artist. All rights reserved.

Martha Posner, Cloak of Thorns, 1996, wire, wildrose canes, cloth, roots, photographs, hair, ribbon, fleece, 80 x 60 x 52 inches. Photo by Robert Wlach, courtesy of the artist. © 1996, 2001, by the artist. All rights reserved.

Martha Posner, Kimono, 1996, raw fleece, wire, thread, 74" x 52" x 40". Photo by Robert Walch, courtesy of the George Gund Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio. © 1996, 2001, by the artist. All rights reserved.

Martha Posner: The Garment Series
Freedman Gallery at Albright College
Reading, Pennsylvania
December 4 - February 5, 1999

Occupying two rooms of the Freedman Gallery, Martha Posner's recent exhibition presented four 74 x 46 inch drawings and five sculptural "garments." The show was nicely balanced with the drawings serving as fairly comprehensible counterpoints to the more intentionally ambiguous sculptural works.

A highly simplified abstracted figure dominates three of the drawings. Essentially a belly crowned by two breasts-like orbs, the figure is a clear homage to ancient fertility figures. The vessel-like shape is embellished with clumps of synthetic hair suggesting a time in human history when both body hair and clothing served a less fashionable, more utilitarian function. In Skin of My Beast, the abstracted figure is rendered in a blood-red oilstick, an allusion perhaps to the cyclical nature of fertility and a connection, at least superficially, to the deep mythic material of matriarchal culture. In this context, the drops of honey that appear on all of the drawings can simultaneously be seen as a literal reference to nurturing and sustenance, and a visual representation of sexual union and fertilization.

Although engaging and commanding, Posner's sculptural pieces are generally more opaque than the drawing, avoiding the drawings' high degree of specificity. This restraint serves the sculpture well; otherwise, the pieces could easily become too theatrical and clever, setting the stage for a phantasmagorical fashion show. In most of the three-dimensional pieces, Posner has understated her case just enough to allow the absent body to become nearly palpable without becoming obvious; corporeality has simply been removed leaving the garment to function as an empty shell from which flesh, bone, and sinew have been drained. As constituted, the works function like animal specimens in a natural history museum—they become mute objects available for analysis and study, but objects that will never completely cease to resonate with the life they once encased. This second layer of information, the residual trace, is reinforced by Posner's selection of material: fleece, canes, fabric, feathers, thorns—materials that suggest individual histories that have been recontextualized and consumed by this new purpose.

The highly expressionistic Cloak of Thorns (1996) assumes a cartoon gesture of an over-starched shirt leaning into a gale-force wind, with chest open and arms thrust downward and back. The cloak's collar, a medusa-like tangle of thorns and twigs, is likewise swept-back thus further suggesting a rushing breeze. The work is fashioned from fleece, ribbon, and brightly colored scraps of fabric that are woven into a heavy armature of wild rose canes, locust tree thorns, and wire. The four-inch-long thorns that cover the pieceproject outward from the surface of the garment to form a menacing armor that nicely foils the piece's cheerful color and animated stance.

Wedding Dress (1996) is sedate and uncomplicated—almost pristine. Approximately five-feet tall, the garment resembles a fairly traditional wedding dress—sleeveless, with tight bodice and full skirt—but it stops short of suggesting virginal purity. The white fabric is distressed and stained, the byproducts of being tightly woven onto a rusted grid of wire fencing that serves as both tailor's form and bride's body.

Kimono (1996) is the largest, least-complex, and easily the most effective work in the exhibition. About seven feet tall, the oversized classical kimono form is constructed of brownish raw fleece over a mostly-hidden, rusted wire armature. The piece acknowledges the traditional garment's aim of de-emphasizing the body in order to render it consistent and anonymous, but Posner's Kimono—in its stark simplicity and raw earthiness—also suggests a crucifix. This intriguing confluence prompts consideration of the methods used by culture and religion to contort, manipulate, hide, and display the body alternately as a symbol of the sacred and the profane.

While Posner has given some of her works evocative titles, their content generally remains enigmatic and suggestive. The garments bravely stand, without bodily support, suspended perpetually in a state between being made and being worn. They coax us into a consideration of the sensual nature of materials, the process of making, and the poetic absence of the body. Fortunately, they generally resist exposing too much more.

Ms. Posner can be contacted at mposner@ptdprolog.net.