Lori Field’s fine lines and hushed, intimate contours take us quietly by the hand to lead us into a world where beasts and humans share living spaces and limbs. Through beautiful, botanical motifs and repeated imagery, the Artist creates a fantasyland backdrop for her cast of imagined characters. She harnesses an intensity in her animal figures’ direct stares and fluid gestures that, in combination with the innocence and beauty of their androgynous and often childlike human attendants, invites a sincere conversation on vulnerability. Silent rabbits, deer, giraffes, zebras, and a myriad of animal hybrids emphasize the hyperawareness that comes from listening intently – not just waiting a turn to be heard.

Compounding on her work in colored pencil and encaustic, this exhibition continues Field’s emphasis on drawing and obsessive detail. Seventy-five spectacular new works on paper revitalize the archaic medium of silverpoint, an exacting and unforgiving medium that forces the hand-eye coordination and focus the Artist seeks. Originally used to make the under-drawings for oil paintings, silverpoint is executed with a metal stylus on a prepared, gessoed surface. Because the stylus’s lines cannot be erased, silverpoint drawing requires a steady hand, concentration, and precision that, for Field, create a meditative state in which her imagination is unlocked. As the silver in the drawing oxidizes, the line ripens from a bright color to a softer, burnished charcoal tone. The organic, changing nature of the work is part of the allure for the Artist.

In creating her own mythology, Field’s voracious consumption of pop culture and current events is hinted at in the content of her work. The careful viewer is made privy to a post-apocalyptic romanticism that exists outside of the cacophony of confusing and conflicting messages in politics and news media. We are rewarded with her whimsical reversal of scale, her subtle interweaving of historical and cultural tropes, and her idiosyncratic language of form. This is Lori Field’s second solo show at Claire Oliver Gallery.