Palace of the Babies, taken from the title of an early Wallace Stevens poem describing weird mysticism on a moonlit walk, shows twelve new pieces (nine paintings, an etching, and two drawings) all drafted during and completed after the artist’s (first!) pregnancy in 2023. Predicting and depicting afterbirth as an afterlife, metaphysical patterns of birth and death dance in nature; these starry cycles are mashed together with blood and female animal reality. Images saturated with baby blues, lead tin yellow light, and desert pinks weave the chaos of nature’s primordial force upon a mother’s body. An Occasional poem marking the mystery baby Bear and her mammalian ferality, we are reminded that cosmic Love is the only constant, enduring even a burning Eden.
Palace of the Babies opens Friday, August 23, 2024 at Green Door Gallery in Wheatgrass Books, 5-8pm with brief readings from the artist and fellow brother in the arts Dalton Brink.
120 N Main St. Livingston, MT