Suzanne
Franks
Smother
June 27 to August 30, 2009
This new exhibition will be an
installation of three-dimensional work by Calgary-based artist Suzanne
Franks. Contained within the one-word title Smother is the word
"mother," the fact of which the artist is only too well aware.
We might call to mind the familiar term "smother love," which
refers to the love of a mother for her child that is too protective for
the child’s own independent development. This is the knife edge that
Franks’ installation addresses: where precisely is the point when mother
love becomes smother love? And how does a mother get it right?
The pieces in the exhibition
address this dilemma through powerful visual metaphor. Both Life Boat
and Life Preserver (each created in 2007) are large, soft, orange
forms made up from a clustering of numerous inflated objects that read
like cuddly babies in the case of Life Boat, and female arms, in Life
Preserver. The babies are afloat, but adrift, while the helpless,
many-armed Life Preserver is pinned at a distance on the gallery
wall. Thus, the babies are hopelessly out of reach of the protective, but
potentially smothering female hands.
