Vernon Fimple’s quatrefoil-shaped painting ‘Corona’ was the signature inspiration for ‘Botany of Desire,’ a show curated by Greg Metz in the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) Visual Arts Building.
‘Corona’ is stunning in person.
The contrast between central figures in white with vivid shades of violet, fuchsia, teal and orange lights ‘Corona’ with a glow that overwhelms the organic, earth-toned works in the body of the show.
“I love it as it makes a big flower and was painted 50 years ago last month,” Metz said, a week prior to the March 25 opening of Botany.
Fimple’s painting is an aerial view of innumerable male and female nudes that overlap but remain captured in individually distinct poses. The leitmotif is similar to art of the Renaissance: a pagan bacchanal juxtaposed with Christian symbols – a central figure wears a crown of thorns.
A juxtaposition of iconography is what Botany is about; the purity of nature with its transformation by the appetites of man.
In ‘Flora and Her Grip,’ Jeffrey Miranda details the transformation of apples, potatoes and cannabis into products more sinister than their natural intent.
“The Greeks considered the pomegranate to be the forbidden fruit, but western thought turned it into the apple,” Miranda said, describing the tapped red apple in his piece, “Why? When you look at the history of the apple, you see we used it to make hard cider.”
Below the apple, a potted cannabis plant with a small red devil perched atop symbolizes the evil of bringing the plants indoors to be cultivated for strains with elevated tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) levels.
THC molecules floating next to the plant are tethered together like balloons and carried by children.
Miranda’s work tells vignettes surrounding a larger narrative; if the Renaissance was an undercurrent in this show his work would be analogous to an allegorical fresco.
Fimple and Miranda’s pieces are not nearly the breadth of work in this exhibition, but the time their intricate design takes to analyze makes them a good place to start.
Botany will continue until April 23, however, installations outside of the gallery may not last as long due to dismemberment by spring windstorms.
Corona
Vernon Fimple
oil on panel 60”x60”
Photographed by Harrison Evans
Flora and Her Grip
Jeffrey Miranda
ink/watercolor 30”x30”
Crime and Punishment: Beautifully Organic, Global and 100% Certified
Claudia Borgna
plastic bags, bamboo wire, size variable
Oh, Africa
Kimberly Alexander
acrylic on board 38”x50”
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