L A V E N T A N A
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| Alice Leora Briggs, La Ventana, chine collé woodcut, 61 1/2 x 41 1/2 inches, 2013 |
He looks up at us from a neo-natal
position, coiled on a sagging wood floor. He is wary, almost cowering as he
observes us staring back at him. Behind rises a chaotic landscape of
architectural debris, a battered airplane, and industrial windows. They
frame a basilica of wreckage, beyond only a distant building and a hint of undergrowth.
A sparrow finds its way above the ruins. It is an alternate Lewis Carroll
world: "We are all mad here," but it is another place and it is
another man.
Alice Leora Briggs notes that
"All of my work is about Juárez." She fixes on her experiences
and spends much time in northern Mexico, just across the bridge from El Paso.
She travels as often as possible to an asylum built by a visionary and sited on
the desert fringe of Juárez. She helps, she talks, she looks, she takes
pictures, she brings tools and supplies, she works with the residents on art
projects. They share meals together. She smells the place, touches the
restraining bars, befriends the dogs, and listens. She is drawn to the people
here and drifts to this place again and again. It resembles both heaven
and hell.
This monumental woodcut print, La
Ventana, is one of many images that Alice has conjured from the asylum in
Juárez. Printed as an edition of ten, it is available at Flatbed Press and
Gallery. Alice's large woodcut is the largest chine collé relief project (61
1/2 x 41 1/2 inches) created at Flatbed Press. Her carving of the wood panel at
this scale yielded a richness of minute details articulated over the entire
surface. The chine collé refers to the natural buff color in the print that was
created with pieces of a Japan paper called Kitikata collaged onto the print
while being printed.
La Ventana, translated from the Spanish as "the window", may be the
closest some of us will get to this borderland. Just like the border between
the U.S. and Mexico, we see through a glass lens and perceive a barrier. Maybe
it is a mirror.
