Review: Massachusetts
Unmoored
Nora Valdez
Boston Sculptors Gallery
Boston, MA
bostonsculptors.com
Through November 1, 2020
The impression of Nora Valdez’s exhibition, Unmoored, is of floating movement. Many pieces feature boats or are based on movable platforms on wheels. The title seems cogent in this moment where so much of familiar reality is suspended by the pandemic. Valdez, originally from Argentina, has explored the subjects of home, displacement and belonging, often through themes that relate to immigration. In this exhibit, the question of how individuals keep their center through difficult transitions is explored.
Nora Valdez, Unmoored, gallery view, sculptures in limestone, wood, drawings. Photo: B. Amore. At Boston Sculptors Gallery
In Soledad, a large ovoid container filled with stone shards, a lone figure is perched on top of a cliff-like form. A heart, house and small paper bag lie beneath her, farther down the cliff, symbolizing a leaving behind. The woman is full-bodied, stalwart, sitting with folded hands, staring into space. Is she resigned, sorrowing, resting? It is hard to tell yet the poignancy of her position does not fail to move the viewer.
Three smaller stone figures perched on wooden shelves echo the questions. Like a trio of Fates, they express varied states of destiny. In Holding on, the graceful woman figure wraps her cloak and body around the pointed house that she clings to. In Empty, the female body is upright, contained, taut. The house form is cut right through her torso, so that light shines through. Melting Heart again reveals a woman with arms folded, this time beneath her flowing heart. The three embody the importance of the connection to the safe space of home and the suffering caused by the rupture of loss.
Valdez is a consummate carver and nowhere are her skills more evident than in Journey. Two stacked boats—one, marked with the familiar home symbol—are poised atop a carved limestone sphere. Seeing the boat making its precarious journey on the sphere of the world invokes the vulnerability of the solitary human journey through the vastness of complex experiences.
Nora Valdez, Journey, limestone on wood base, 2020. Photo: B. Amore. At Boston Sculptors Gallery.
The bound figures of Forced to Go, carved in white-washed wood, tagged with the words “inventory control,” remind us of human trafficking, slavery and kidnappings where helpless individuals are treated as cargo. Similar tags that symbolize the paucity of most migrants’ belongings are attached to open, near-empty suitcases, painted white.
The exhibit has a stark quality. The predominance of the color white implies invisibility. The warm, beige tones of the carved limestone figures stand out against the minimalist settings of the installations. Noteworthy are Valdez’s drawings from her journals. They stretch along 8-25’ shelves and are a clue to Valdez’ working process which begins with sketches. Figures, boats, journeys, maps, pasted texts, stream across the accordion folded paper, reminiscent of the Japanese-style of folding book known as Orihon.
The long drawings give the sense of perpetual journey, and that is what Valdez seems to be suggesting in the sculptures as well—the continuity of the human journey, with all its inherent disruptions and accommodations, the sense of life continually unfolding of its own accord, and we, as travelers, continually facing the questions raised.
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In the second gallery at BSG, Kirsten Reynolds’ intricately balanced installation, The Slightest Shift, fills the room with bright, painted arcs attached to wood frames. As the viewer enters the structural space, they become both witness and participant in an inexplicable narrative.
Kirsten Reynolds, The Slightest Shift, wood, paint, 10.5 x 15 x 25’, 2020. Photo: Will Howcroft. At Boston Sculptors Gallery.
Boston Sculptors Gallery: Upcoming Exhibitions
November 4-December 6: Waldo Jespersen: Hoc Modo, a singular monumental sculpture composed of aluminum tubes which visitors can interact with and create sound. Andrea Thompson: Talismans for Travelers, a series of large sculptures in wood, fiberglass and thread that speak to the human journey.
Opening December 9:Larry Pollans: Forest, sculptures and drawings in mixed media that explore the primal experience of a trek through the forest.Margaret Swan: Lift, constructed aluminum sculptures exploring the forces of nature in relation to structures that harness its power.
— B. Amore