Liz Ward: Angangueo
UTSA Satellite Space
- Wendy Weil Atwell -
In Angangueo, a flurry of butterflies covered the right side of UTSA Satellite Space. Liz Ward’s latest installation carries the name of a town in Michoacan, Mexico, where the Monarch butterfly winters every year. Her work rivals the visual complexity of this butterfly species, exploring exquisite manipulations of color and form. Grounding the butterflies’ flight are intense watercolor studies set in the left-hand corner of the gallery, while intricate silverpoint drawings on the front wall anchor a cohesive and controlled exhibition.
The installation included hundreds of papers, each printed with individual butterflies in a variety of patterns and shapes. On each paper, Ward delicately cut one wing with an Exacto knife, folding them so that they lift off the wall as if in flight. Underneath each lifted wing she painted the wall sky blue, creating the illusion of peeking up into the sky; in contrast, the wall around the perimeter of the paper remained white. Angangueo captures the asymmetry of an actual group of migrating butterflies—a large central grouping of bodies with single insects scattered in unpredictable positions along the perimeter. Their flight was a flux of red to green, deepening into a brilliant Monarch orange in the center.
Using a nineteenth-century photographic printing process called gum bichromate, the artist extracted varying wing patterns from various science books. Her image sources ranged from microscopic visions of wing scales to views of butterflies set in rows. These patterns subtly coalesce, morphing from butterfly to human; a pair of human profiles is also contained in each butterfly shape. In the top portion of each wing, Ward set profiles facing left and right. In the bottom portion, she places another profile upside down so that each quadrant of the wing is actually a human face. The profiles blend into one another, attached in the very place where they become a butterfly—no longer human. Imagine the edge of a wing as forehead, eyes, nose, mouth, chin and neck blending into neck, chin, mouth, nose, eyes and forehead again. This subtle melding of human and insect forms conveys an ecological awareness, which becomes a formal consideration of the interaction and interdependency of species.
Liz Ward, Angangueo (detail), 2004
Installation view, UTSA Satellite Space
Ward began working with silverpoint after seeing an exhibition of old master drawings at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. Silverpoint’s indelible quality does not allow for mistakes. To work successfully with this medium requires skill, and Ward’s silverpoint drawings reveal a proficient draftswoman at work. Seemingly abstract, the drawings are actually inspired by microscopic views of mesquite pollen and tree rings.
Silverpoint requires high-toothed paper—something for its metal point to grip. To give it texture, Ward paints paper with tinted gesso. In Mesquite Pollen II, the surface is a radiant green that looks hand-painted due to minute changes in the color field. Both tree rings and pollen contain countless, delicate cells within cells within cells. Their intricacy—the way lines follow the contours of each form—stands as a record of a careful and precise hand. The effect is light and ephemeral. Holding energy within each faint line and across their colored surfaces, these drawings glow.
Ward’s four watercolor studies display another kind of precision, yet their structure echoes that of her silverpoint drawings. Again, the artist works with a series of concentric rings—shapes that reference the eyespots on a butterfly’s wings. She begins with a large exterior shape and blends color to build the image. Each interior ring deepens and changes until the center is a different color. Wing Sky Fade begins with the lightest of blues and deepens to a rich brown; Sky Pool transforms from a light to deep orange. Adding to an overall complexity, each study contains an elliptical shape where the paper remains clean, white and bare. This void punches through the paint’s illusion. It is the opposite of a tattoo, but holds a tattoo’s strength, marking each image with a singular sense of control.
Ward’s mastery of color, form and attention to detail links her use of disparate media in a quiet but vital way. Angangueo is clearly the result of a deep reflection on ecology. Yet the seriousness with which the artist treats form and color extends far beyond political views on the environment. The natural world may be the basis of Ward’s work, but the art’s strength and gravity allows us to understand her inspiration.