ART Habens Art Review ART Habens Art Review - Special Issue #89 | Page 72

ART Habens
Lael Burns
or an embryo, pins become candy,
paint becomes a skin of strawberry
ice-cream or bubble gum, a pom pom
becomes a microorganism or
disease. My work strives to have a
visceral presence by virtue of formal
aesthetics, often riding the line
between what is beautiful, grotesque
and delicious. This speaks to various
dichotomies I often reference in my
work, such as light and dark, spirit
and flesh. In a similar way, I work
intuitively to experiment within
various constants. For example, I
have been working with lace patterns
for about 15 years now, but I have
found different ways to integrate
them into my work over time.
with spray paint, rendering of the
root forms with either paint,
graphite, and/or charcoal, and
pinstriping designs. There’s a
compositional process of push and
pull, burying and exposing, that
determines an intuitive sense of
unity and balance. Final areas of
modeling paste and glitter are added
at the end. I often refer to these as
“glitter sores” that reference the idea
of healing, beauty, and rebirth. This
series deals with the idea of a
relatively small, diverse mankind
unified in carrying the mark and
qualities of a much larger God.
In a broad sense, I can see how
symbolism alone could be