Art Review: Mississippi's storytellers inspire artist

By Andria Lisle

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Mississippi and mythic monsters figure largely in painter Allison Furr-Lawyer's work, currently exhibited at D'Edge Gallery on South Main.

The Jackson, Miss., native, a recent transplant to Memphis, taps into a visual storytelling style illustrative of the tales spun by Southern writers such as Barry Hannah, Carson McCullers and Flannery O'Connor: Details of carnivals, painted ladies and the implied decrepitude of a small-town square creep into her work, both via her subject matter and the material she uses instead of canvas, including discarded doors, wood planks and tin ceiling tiles.

In her artist's statement, Furr-Lawyer claims to be inspired by the pictures taken by the late Mississippi literary great Eudora Welty, known more for her work as a writer than her skills as a photographer, despite the wonderful collections "Eudora Welty: Photographs" and "One Time, One Place."

Either Welty's words or her pictures could've informed "Canton Delegate," which features an old woman, her features spread across an old wooden door that Furr-Lawyer has repurposed as a canvas. She wears a blue dress and matching hat, and a real lace collar is attached at her neck. Here, the details are impeccable -- the gill-like age spots on her face, a sagging bustline, a strand of pearls and fallen down knee-highs add up to a portrait as revealing as the adjectives Welty chose to employ in her short story, "The Worn Path." The same subject appears again in the cameo-like painting "Old Lady From Canton," her lips pursed together and her eyelids and turkey neck drooping as she faces the world head-on.

"Sweet Tea," "She Destroyed All My Carpets," "Hale on Wheels" and "Fountain of Youth" depict much younger subjects. The most enthralling of the quartet, "Fountain of Youth," portrays a healthy blonde showgirl hoisting a bottle of holy water, painted on a surface fashioned from various-sized planks of wood. Like a sea siren, she promises a life of danger and excitement to wayfaring young men like Harriman Monroe, the protagonist of Hannah's "Geronimo Rex." Yet, viewed in the gallery, the portrait appears to be a wispy memento of past times, much like the faded murals that still cling to the bricked buildings downtown.

"Twisted Rubber Woman" could be a sideshow banner, while "Welcome To Memphis" and "Attacking the Pyramid" might be movie posters for a yet-unmade horror movie. The latter two combine pure fantasy with a socio-political statement, depicting a rather lady-like Godzilla (in "Welcome To Memphis," she wears a lace slip and airbrushed fingernails) destroying the seedy iconography, such as the Paris Adult Theatre and Skateland, that makes Furr-Lawyer's adopted home stand out.

Work by Allison Furr-Lawyer

At D'Edge Art and Unique Treasures, 550 S. Main, through Jan. 31.

For more information, go to D-EdgeArt.com.