The Brenda Taylor Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings by Heather Wilcoxon. In the past several years, the artist has been addressing the grave issues of war and global conflict within a seemingly benevolent abstracted comic book style. This so-called “lowbrow” world of comics masks the deep anxiety the artist experienced in the aftermath of September 11th. The dark and difficult issues of terrorism, war and death take form in crude and childlike iconography that attempts to bridge the rift between the abstract and the comic.

The storyline in conventional comics is developed through sequential vignettes. And although Wilcoxon’s characters are sometimes “serialized”, her paintings are far less concerned with telling a complete narrative than they are with an overall effect. The artist employs a wide variety of mediums and techniques to create a highly worked surface. Oil paint, resin, pencil, print transfers, collage and assemblage are often combined to dynamic effect. Wilcoxon is also an accomplished bookmaker. Her one of a kind books are intensely labored over and fetishized affairs. While there is a vague storyline within these books, the focus again is an overall aesthetic look. Rough-hewn in appearance, the books have the appearance of an eccentric family scrapbook.

The painting, Asleep at the Wheel, 2007, is dominated by a large mechanized orb with a leafless tree sprouting from one of many rivet-like knobs. A sickly turquoise-ringed sun, like an all-seeing eye looms in the sky. In the foreground, the figure of a man with eyes squinched shut is oblivious to a nearby imminent catastrophe, while a bug-eyed bunny (a frequent signifier in Wilcoxon’s work of nature in peril), surveys the scene. In the artist’s hands, the reference to a world out of balance is both disturbing and unnervingly comedic. Other works incorporate word balloons in stylized lettering, AK-47 assault rifles in day glow colors and organic blobs oozing green goo. Spontaneous caricature and cartooning are Wilcoxon’s investigative instruments for creating aesthetic and comic abstractions.