The drawing and its title recall the so-named ancient Greek god of medicine and particularly his snake-coiled staff, which still is a symbol associated with healing. Ascelepius (2013) pictures what seems to be a dental or surgical tool intertwined with the sprig of a plant. Hung in frames the same doctor’s-office-pink as the towel rack in Scarlatina, the graphite and pastel drawings are faithfully rendered as if pages from a taxonomy or medical text book. The pictographic nature of the installation is wonderfully contrasted by two of Graves’s drawings on an adjacent wall. Scuttlebutt, a yellow wallpaper that serves as a backdrop, is dotted with similar symbolism-a hand with the tip of the forefinger cut off, syringes, medical scissors, an eye and lashes, needle and thread. Scarlatina (a term for scarlet fever) efficiently conveys, using hand-shaped and circular slips of vinyl, a glove draped over a towel rack and dripping with blood. Scarlatina (2014) and Scuttlebutt (2014) are built of symbols in the aesthetic style of wingdings or traffic signage and create a setting that seems intended to be read like a sign. A corner of the gallery is arranged with four individual works that create a scene of melodrama through a lens of digital age iconography. Whereas Hancock’s suite of prints are subdued in narrative, an installation by Langdon Graves is replete with it. Trenton Doyle Hancock, Wow That’s Mean, 2008 four etchings on black paper with chine-collé. The prints progressively roil into a dark abstraction with any impressions of figures bubbling up for no longer than a moment. Initially relating to Hancock’s saga of the Vegans and Mounds, the exclamation is repeated to the extent that the words lose their narrative meaning and become basic pictorial elements, not so much letters and words as complex mark-making. The relentless reiteration of the phrase produces a visual sort of semantic satiation. Titled Wow That’s Mean (2008), the black on black etchings continuously repeat the title of the suite in neat left-to-right lines gradually warping into swirls and spirals over the course of the four prints. Though widely known for his highly figurative paintings and drawings, the Houston artist here presents four prints that are entirely text based. Hints at a subject are much more subtle in the contributions of Trenton Doyle Hancock. In the foreground, Sarah Emersons Sweet Heebeegeebees, 2013 acrylic and rhinestones on canvas, 36 by 36 inches. Not fully formed, the concealed faces are perhaps paranoid visions, sprouting from the landscape like mushrooms and reflecting the nebulous unease found in much of Emerson’s work.

Heads peer out at the viewer, some appearing to be skulls, other leering, eyeballs intact. As the painting’s title suggests, Sweet Heebeegeebees (2013) pictures almost cartoonish yet nefarious scenery. In a painting by Atlanta-based Sarah Emerson, the disconcerting nature of a hidden subject is projected onto a landscape, perhaps even projected by that landscape. This reflects the sure ambiguity of the artist mid-flight, her inconspicuousness among fellow travelers essential to evading unwanted attention and the success of the performance. Still, Mule (HKD/ORD) refrains from explicitly depicting the figure of the artist (the X-ray, arguably, an image of the figurine). Even the title of the piece refers not to any of the items mounted on the gallery wall but to the human body acting as an illicit form of transport. Each component forcefully points to the artist’s body. Upon seeing Mule (HKD/ORD) during the exhibition’s opening and realizing the nature of the figurine’s international journey, several gallery visitors visibly winced in empathetic discomfort. The information card elucidates the collection of items, describing the medium as “Elephant ivory smuggled vaginally from Hong Kong to O’Hare, x-ray.” Noelle Mason, Mule (HKG/ORD), 2007 X-ray, elephant ivory smuggled vaginally from Hong Kong to O’Hare.Įssentially documentation of a performance, the work’s antiseptic presentation does not dampen its visceral impact. A United Airlines boarding pass, a Buddha figurine, and a gallery invoice are displayed in a shadow box beside a pelvic X-ray of the artist, the same figurine glowing white at the image’s center. While self-image and post-selfie portraiture is explored in pieces by Gigi Lage and LA-based Amir Fallah, current concerns are perhaps most overtly felt in Noelle Mason’s Mule (HKD/ORD) (2007).

Scarlet scuttlebutt