Eric Baillies
A visitor takes in Peter Eglington’s “Nectar” (mixed media on canvas).
A couple of summers ago, sculptor and retired UW-Madison art professor Steve Feren invited me into his rural Fitchburg studio and gallery, Ferenheit, to view his mixed media works in glass, concrete, steel and controlled LED lighting.
That’s where I first encountered some of Feren’s large figurative fantasy creatures in concrete, with surfaces of reflective glass balls. The torch-bearing gorillas, outsized birds, moose and whistle pigs reminded me of something from the art of Maurice Sendak, but uniquely Feren’s. They also struck me as being possibly uncontainable and wild, as if they could magically escape, gleaming and twinkling, into the moonlit woods.
Turns out they took a trip down the road.
Now many of these pieces, including a whimsical 7 foot-by-8-foot robin, and smaller LED-lighted works in cast glass, are exuberantly displayed in Evocative Mechanisms of Art, the spring art showcase at Fitchburg’s Promega BioPharmaceutical Technology Center.
Feren’s pieces are displayed alongside the work of two contemporary visual artists: Madisonian Cherie St. Cyr, a master of sumptuous hand-dyed textiles; and Australian Peter Eglington, who paints large-scale mythical works with mixed media illuminated in brilliant hues.
Eric Baillies
Steve Feren’s ‘Moose Solo’ is made with concrete and glass.
The visionary show, spanning two circular levels in Promega’s light-filled atrium, is a fun and immersive introduction to the masterful contemporary works.
The show was curated by Arizona-based photographer Daniel Swadener, who has curated and produced Promega’s exhibits since 1996. With his eye for composition, balance and unifying movement, Swadener presents a show that flows beautifully and organically within this handsomely designed exhibit space. A mandala here, an abstract circle of color there, and recurring imagery of a tree of life and animals — all make for a story-like interplay of subject and theme.
Looking closely at Feren’s “Confucius Door” (glass and LED light) gives you an uncanny sense of seeing the works of all three artists at once. It’s almost as if one of St. Cyr’s blocks-of-color textiles is floating in the background. There are also hints of one of the few strictly black-and-white works in this otherwise color-bursting show, Eglington’s dazzlingly sinuous “Bodhisattva Vow” (pen and ink on canvas).
“Successful art tends to be evocative,” says Swadener. “Whether your response is positive or negative, you’re initially responding to something that touches your own experience. From there we can begin to pursue the unknown.”
Swadener says St. Cyr’s works remind him of West African textiles. There’s a sculptural energy in the lines and soft shapes she creates. And St. Cyr makes brilliant use of dot patterns and solid, bold colors — blacks, reds, turquoise and whites.
The lines have a homespun dimensionality, and words and phrases are stitched into the background of some of the untitled pieces, like ghostly silver embossment or even cursive blackboard writing.
The elegance of abstract forms in St. Cyr’s art evokes a sense of comfort, protection and child-like innocence. The fabric works also remind me of the stained glass in sacred places, and of a bright meditative urbanity, such as you can find in the collages of Henri Matisse or Stuart Davis’s jazzy modernist paintings of the 1950s.
One of Cherie St. Cyr’s hand-dyed quilts, over 50 quilts on exhibit.
On the second-floor gallery at the top of the stairs, Eglington’s large-scale “Dreamspell Calendar/Galactic Mandala” (color pencil on canvas) positively churns with intricacy, cosmic psychedelic color and sacred iconography. The viewer is drawn up into a counter-gravitational whirl of rising consciousness.
In fact, it’s no accident that many of these works have a psychedelic quality. “The artwork in this show is deliberate in its intent to engage and expand consciousness,” says Stephanie Shea, Promega’s events planner. The show will be up when the company hosts the International Forum on Consciousness, a national conference on the use of psychedelics in therapy, in May.
Nearby is Eglington’s equally massive and visionary “Ancient Soma Tree” (mixed media on canvas), another stunner of blissfully expanding symbology, fiery golds and dreamy blues. I love the mix of nature, culture and spirituality in this work. It takes you in, sweeps you right up with its saints and shamans, its animal spirits and earthiness — entwining with glowing supernal life.
Evocative Mechanisms of Art is on display at Promega BioPharmaceutical Center (5445 East Cheryl Parkway in Fitchburg) through June 7. Hours are 8 a.m.-4 p.m., Monday through Friday. Admission is free.
