Vaguely reminiscent of children's book illustrations, Amy Cutler's extraordinarily detailed paintings depict a dream world inhabited by hybrid animals, women with long braids and violence. These delicate yet ferocious paintings make up "Amy Cutler," the first traveling exhibition of the artist's work that is currently on exhibit at List Art Center's David Winton Bell Gallery.
Organized by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, this exhibit breaks Cutler's work into five themes: "Multiples," "Metaphor," "Evolution," "Transformation" and "Timelines." Though Cutler's recurring imagery and symbols unite her work, this categorization highlights different expressions of her underlying themes. "Multiples" depicts groups of women engaged in assorted activities. In "Metaphor," Cutler provides a pictorial explanation of various metaphors. "Evolution" questions the relationship between humans and animals, while women's bodies and clothing become sources of shelter in "Transformation." "Timelines," meanwhile, is concerned with female hair as a source of history and strength. In all of her paintings, Cutler uses seemingly folktale-inspired techniques to depict slightly gruesome and perplexing situations.
In "Umbrage," four figures have umbrellas strapped to their heads while they ride goats. Grasping onto the horns of the goats, the two men - each bleeding from previous umbrella wounds - are poised to head-butt each other with the points of their umbrellas. The two female figures are not passive bystanders but instead seem to be waiting for their turn to fight. Their broken limbs and bleeding wounds provide support for this reading. Cutler provides a somewhat ambiguous contemporary social commentary while using whimsical and childlike images.
In this painting, as well as in others, Cutler seems concerned with the role of women in society. She uses figures of women in nature to draw parallels between women and animals.
Again, in "Dinner Party," Cutler uses visually appealing images to underline the gruesomeness of her scene. Four women dressed in opulent 18th-century finery have chairs braided onto their heads. Two women are standing on a dinning room table head-butting each other. They have kicked over their feast, causing chicken, fruit, pots and pans to spill onto the beautifully patterned tablecloth. On the right side, one woman helps another rope her hair around a chair. Cutler gives her image even more power by only painting figures and a few pieces of furniture. She leaves much of her paper white and untouched in contrast to her extraordinarily precise patterned dresses, textured hair and detailed food.
Perhaps the power of these paintings lies in their ambiguity, as Lisa Freiman, curator of contemporary art at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, suggested.
"Cutler's delightful world of ambiguity is tied to our everyday lives and fantasies. She revels in leaving the responsibility of interpretation with the viewer," Freiman said.
