Art Review: Solo exhibit casts light on more private times in life : GoMemphis.com

There are times in Ali Cavanaugh's poignant exhibit at L Ross Gallery that you almost feel like a voyeur eavesdropping on someone's private, transformative moments. The artist is fine with that. After all, her intent is to capture what can't be seen -- the interior of a person -- in addition to the finely wrought realism of her subject's outward poses and gestures.

Titled "Brilliance in the Lost Moment of Hesitation," Cavanaugh's show of nearly two dozen works is her first solo outing at L Ross, where it runs through June 30 (a reception will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. today).

She works in a modified fresco secco process by applying watercolor onto dry plaster. It's a technique that requires exacting care and spontaneity in equal measure, giving her canvases an often stunning fluidity of line, color and space.

Says gallery owner Linda Ross of Cavanaugh's work: "I love her human connection. It's so spot on. You can just feel the heart in her work, but it's also done in such a beautiful contemporary graphic way."

A St. Louis native, Cavanaugh, 35, moved around, including stints in New York City and Sante Fe, N.M., before settling recently in the small town of St. Genevieve, Mo.

There, she came across a teenager, Milly Naeger, undergoing cancer treatment. Soon enough, the girl became Cavanaugh's muse, the perfect foil for the painter's brand of contemporary figurative realism.

"Every time I'd see her, she wore the wildest colors and the wildest patterns, and I just loved it," says Cavanaugh, who did two photo shoots of Naeger in between cancer treatments. "She looked like a painting, a masterpiece. I think of (her) like Andrew Wyeth with Helga. She struck me that strongly."

What also struck Cavanaugh was the struggle and suffering inside Naeger.

"I could see the battle that was happening and it was very touching," she says.

Cavanaugh's empathy comes, in part, from her own situation. At 11/2 , she contracted meningitis, which made her deaf. Yet rather than view her condition as a disability, Cavanaugh says it aids her in finding the inner dialogues of her subjects.

"I think it's helped me see inside people more," she says. "It's an important part of my art."

Indeed, the 15 paintings of the "Milly" series manage to capture the complex of emotions swimming inside both a typical teen as well as one faced with the repercussions of cancer. The theme, however, is less about a girl in pain as it is about her metamorphosis, an emergence from girl to woman, from victim to survivor. (Now 17, Naeger is in remission after a two-year battle, according to Cavanaugh.)

One of the more impressive works, "Interior Light," casts Naeger in autumnal hues with her back to the viewer, her arms outstretched and covered in flamboyantly-hued socks as if she were a modern-day Harlequin asked to perform not physical but emotional acrobatics. The suggestive layers are beguiling with feelings at once of resignation, forgiveness, and acceptance -- a child letting go, offering herself up to the waiting embrace, perhaps, of an uncertain fate.

Rounding out the show are eight portraits of baby animals such as piglets, kids and pups. This unlikely gallery pairing resonates with life-cycle symbolism, however, for Cavanaugh, who made them while -- unbeknownst to her -- she was experiencing morning sickness. Just don't expect more of these cute and cuddly creatures any time soon.

Pregnant with her third child, Cavanaugh doesn't have the typical food and smell revulsion of an expectant mom. "For me right now, the thing that turns my stomach is painting animals."

"Brilliance in the Lost Moment of Hesitation"

A solo show by Ali Cavanaugh on display at L Ross Gallery, 5040 Sanderlin, Suite 104, through June 30. An opening reception is from 6 to 8 p.m. today. For more information, call 767-2200 or go to lrossgallery.com.