The exhibition “caesura” is built around two monumental installations by one of Colorado’s most significant artists, Martha Russo.
There is more to this diverse showcase of Russo’s recent output — currently on display at the Galleries of Contemporary Art (GoCa) in Colorado Springs — but the dual star attractions alone, each large-scale, complicated and endlessly entertaining, are more than enough to encourage the one-hour trip south from Denver. It’s a chance to see the latest thinking from a locally based artist who has been practicing her craft for more than three decades, placing works in important collections along the way.
Russo has drawn her exhibition title from the word “caesura,” which in Greek and Latin refers to a pause between words in a piece of literature, though it can also be used to describe any break or moment of stoppage in any given action.
And that is what his exhibition effectively offers, a moment to simply stop and look at some curious objects produced by an artist with her own limitless fascination of the natural world. Russo’s astonishment over the land and the sea, and also the human body, provides a timely escape from a complicated world.
“Look slowly and deeply to find yourself in the monumental and minuscule that make up ‘caesura,’” writes exhibition organizer Joy Armstrong in her introduction to the show. In most cases, that advice would seem rudimentary. But here it is actually profound.
Russo draws viewers in by focusing on the small remnants of animal and plant life — shells, rocks, bones and splinters — and pulls them into massive objects that explore how the universe comes together.
The most engrossing is “lacuna,” the latest iteration of Russo’s 30-year in-the-making “nomas” series, which combines tens of thousands of handmade porcelain forms into one evolving work of art. The series was originally inspired, at least in part, by the movement of a school of squid, and followers of Russo have seen it take different shapes over the years.
The last time I encountered the series, a few years back at the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, the ceramic bits were rolled up into giant spheres and their individual shapes, resembling mollusks and fluid sea creatures, made it look like something you might spot during an ocean dive.
This time around, Russo’s inspiration grew to include giant redwood trees, and so she added land elements — things that look like fungi, leaves or stones — and brought the work ashore. The object on display at GoCa looks more like a fallen log, split into two parts, that a hiker might come upon in the forest.
The work is more colorful in this incarnation with the reds and browns of earthen objects contrasting sharply with the muted pastels of the original ocean dwellers that formerly dominated the piece. It is also considerably larger, stretching 24 feet long and 12 feet high.
But the work is also richer in how it views the relationship between the elements of nature. By blending the earth and sea together, it seems to encapsulate ideas of evolutionary change, to take on planetary history and the environment. It feels like the work of an artist who has lived a long life.
The other visceral joy in the exhibition is the piece titled “phase shift (wattling)” and, in some ways, it has the opposite effect. The work feels light and of-the-moment, not profound as much as it is playful.
The installation is made from wattles. In case you do not know (and who does?), that is the name of the temporary erosion barriers often used in road and construction projects. They are basically made of netted tubes that are stuffed with hay or shredded aspen trees. They are long and round, sort of like snakes.
Russo, who lives in Boulder, encountered many of them after the floods that occurred there in 2013. Scores of wattles held back earth and water as crews reconstructed roads. But, she saw something in them beyond their normal function and set about exploring how to “free” them, as she put it.
For “phase shift,” she cut them into different lengths, inserted metal rods inside them and twisted them into various shapes. Some resemble humans, others animals or architectural objects. One looked to me like a fat worm, another was an elegantly coifed French poodle. Viewers get to interpret their outlines as they choose, similar to when people look at clouds or constellations of stars.
But Russo has something grander in mind. As she often does in her practice, she brings the small elements together into a larger attraction. In this case, there are hundreds of wattles placed along the hallway of the gallery building and then right out onto its front porch. The work is a high-desert forest of wattles spanning 200 feet long, and includes both interior and exterior parts.
This installation is decidedly inelegant. It feels arbitrary and unpredictable and not-so-serious, hand-made and temporary — just the opposite of Russo’s porcelain works, which carry an aura of gravity and timelessness.
But in some ways, they are more artful, a clear example of how an artist looks at everyday things and sees the possibility for more. But also how an artist with confidence and ambition makes impossible things happen: There is so much labor behind the work, in acquiring the huge industrial materials, cutting, shaping, installing them on walls, shelves and concrete. It took an army to assemble.
The overall exhibition, “caesura,” closes Dec. 2, but this particular installation of wattles will remain on view for two years.
That means the porcelain “lacuna” will be gone soon, and so will the exhibition’s other works. That includes “Incubo,” a table-top installation of dozens of ceramic-based sculptures that were inspired by and during the coronavirus pandemic, and “pensum,” a series of clear, acrylic sculptures of various shapes embedded in the gallery walls. (They look like pregnant bellies to me, though visitors have the freedom to see whatever they want in the objects.)
The same goes with the rest of “caesura.” See in it what you will. I found the whole outing inspirational.
IF YOU GO
“Caesura”: continues through Dec. 2 in the Ent Center for the Arts on the University of Colorado campus in Colorado Springs. It is free. Info at 719-255-3504 or gocadigital.org.
Ray Mark Rinaldi is a freelance Denver writer focusing on fine arts.
