"Internally Yours" - New Artworks by Nouar

“Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.” - Ambrose Bierce

"The belly rules the mind." - Spanish Proverb

"ncle Jello" was the first painting of Nouar's that I ever saw in person.

Being the friend of a friend, I had met the artist previously and had acquired some glossy postcards from her; one of the misleadingly innocent “Lemonade Parade” and another of the far more unsettling “You Satisfy Me.”  To say that I was intrigued by the images would be an understatement, and I became more enamored with the work after peering into her repertoire via the internet. 

To the casual looker, Nouar’s work is definitely a playful romp through the ideals of mid-century foodstuff marketing, complete with anthropomorphous manifestations of carousing vittles who sing, dance, and lead us to believe that their sole purpose for existing, their utmost desire in life, is to be consumed.  With a closer look, however, it becomes apparent that there is much more to scrutinize in Nouar’s carefully thought out images than just a well crafted sense of cartoon-ish nostalgia and kitsch.  If you contemplate them even momentarily, the questionable behaviors of Nouar’s characters lead to narratives that transcend the world of food and instead comment on the societal interactions of that most questionable of creatures, the human being.

Food is a brutal contemplation.  It is chopped, crushed, squeezed, diced, gutted, butchered, boiled, fried, grilled, chewed, eaten, digested, consumed.  It is not a far stretch to say that human beings are also a brutal contemplation… and perhaps not much more of a stretch to say that many of those aforementioned brutalities very literally associated with food can be, at the very least figuratively, associated with human interactions and relationships as well.  Under such a light, the theme remains “eat or be eaten”, but the implications become far darker.

But back to the beginning of the story.  “Uncle Jello” was the first painting of Nouar’s that I ever saw in person.  And what a first-person experience it was.  In 2009, the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City, CA, hosted a group exhibition called the Multi-Plane Show.  For the exhibit, a divers group of contemporary artists were invited to create artworks utilizing a vintage multiple-glass panel animation technique.  Essentially it involved creating images on three separate sheets of glass which were then assembled into layers, bringing a sense of depth and perspective to the content by utilizing the actual space between the pieces of glass.  Most of the artists in the show seemed to take the logical route, using the glass layers to create environmental depth, but “Uncle Jello” was different.  Whereas most of the showpieces involved a looking across or through space, Nouar’s contribution instead chose to use the glass panel technique to look INTO a space.  Where most of the artworks surrounding it had narratives and actions playing themselves out in familiar, tangible locales, the tale perpetrated by “Uncle Jello” played itself out in some indefinable netherworldly innerspace.

Uncle Jello himself was a red-tinted transparent resin sculpture affixed to a pane of glass.  Just head and shoulders, the jello-mold headed gentleman smiled invitingly in his smart bow tie and brown sport coat, a fitting expression for a dashing portrait.  But Uncle Jello’s gentlemanly facade became unshakably sinister when it became evident that there were unhappy faced strawberry people trapped within his gelatin noggin.  At once both charming and alarming, “Uncle Jello” became so much more than simply a three-deep story about the demise of some strawberries.  Who was this belying character?  Who were these poor berries suspended like thoughts within his evidently calculating cranium?  Why were they there?  What had they done?  What lay in store for them?  Would they ever escape?  Could there be an “Uncle Jello” in our own lives? 

The piece really was, to say the least, quite remarkable.  I had been enraptured by the galleries of her work I had perused online, but this was definitely a case of an artist doing something new, fresh, and unprecedented.  If I had not already been a convert to her work, “Uncle Jello” undeniably sealed the commitment.  Nouar had found a way to add a dimension, literally, of meaning to an already complex mixture of symbolisms and motifs.  And being able to accompany the visual, technical element with narrative and vision that made the work truly meaningful is definitely a feather in her artistic hat… beret?

Luckily, the significance of what the artist had brought to the table was not lost on the owners of the gallery.  “Internally Yours”, the Nouar solo exhibit opening at the Corey Helford Gallery on June 11^th, will showcase a body of work birthed in the premise of that first “Uncle Jello.”  Using transparent food as a metaphor for the struggles, entrapments, and vices of our own lives, the exhibit’s artworks continue to explore Nouar’s already established themes of human interaction and relationship.  But experimenting with the new tools afforded her by “Uncle Jello”, Nouar’s new work is taking us on an inward bound journey.  It is a poignant exploration of who or what we hide away on the inside, perhaps ultimately asking us to question whether we may be the ones who are in fact being hidden away by something greater than ourselves.  A journey we should all be looking forward to taking.

"Internally Yours"

Nouar
Opening Reception - Saturday, June 11, 2011 7-10pm 

Corey Helford Gallery

8522 Washington Boulevard
Culver City, CA 90232-7444
(310) 287-2340

On View - June 11 – June 29, 2011
coreyhelfordgallery.com



-Squeezebox Sam