By Josiry Orellana
Those who claim perfection know nothing and those who embrace their imperfections reach a level of beauty that could never be found otherwise. The exhibition, Cute and Creepy, seems to have stumbled its way into that beauty like an earth worm turning the earth bringing life to our planet. Though a few pieces in this gallery left me a bit unsettled, this gallery moved me and brought me to life, and though many around me highly expressed their discomfort at the pieces before them, I cannot help but wonder: How was their life before a single moment caused our paths to cross? What makes you see these perfectly imperfect pieces so differently than the person right next to you?
Every day I live my life, forgetting that those around me live their lives too. Not realizing that everyone’s experience is different than my own. Looking at these wondrous works of art, and overhearing these conversations, I am brought to a moment of sonder, and, for a moment, life, time, the universe, and all existence stood still for me. The crowd became a part of the gallery. Beautiful people, with beautiful lives, passing by me smiling and seeing me as an equal not knowing the life I have lived and how people have seen and thought of me before, it’s a creepy thought. All I can do is contemplate. How did this gallery manage to envelope all its observers into its world?
The first, and most prominent piece to answer that question for me is Carrie Ann Baade’s Unspeakable. From the moment that I laid eyes on this piece from across the gallery I was absorbed into the world that was magically opened to me. I felt protected by the woman before me, dressed in black with a mask that makes her look unbearably divine. I felt the heat of hell envelope me through the gaping mouth of her dress. I could step into that world and yet I wonder who would be consumed for their sins.
As my attention shifted from awe to fear my eyes could not help but shift as well. It seemed eerily appropriate that to the right of the firey open mouthed inferno should be its gate keeper and master. Chet Zar’s The Emperor seemed to appropriately envision the emotion I felt at the moment but the single gaping “eye” spoke more volumes then I could have ever uttered in my life, and it froze me like I had frozen all the others. We were not observers then, far from it; we were the artwork to this grand emperor and at that moment everyone became one.
A strange feeling courses through me as I complete my tour of the gallery. The frozen world around me began to thaw, and in it I saw movement. Movement in which the life that I saw evolved into more. It evolved into something that I could gaze on and yet be a part of the very excitement I was experiencing.
Josiry Orellana is majoring in art at Valdosta State University, and is originally from Brooklyn, New York. Josiry is focusing on Computer Animation and Special Effects Makeup. After she graduates, Josiry plans to go to graduate school.