DROOPED FROM THE ROOT
press release
Underdonk presents: DROOPED FROM THE ROOT
Meg Lipke and Amy Talluto
Opening Reception Friday, July 26th, 6-9pm
July 26th-August 25th, 2019
“Would talk about the haunted glen, / The wicked, quaint fruit-merchant men, / Their fruits like honey to the throat / But poison in the blood“
Underdonk is pleased to present, “Drooped From The Root”, a two person exhibition with Meg Lipke and Amy Talluto. The exhibition is inspired by the 1862 prose poem “The Goblin Market” by Christina Rossetti. The show includes several free-standing fabric-construction floor sculptures by Meg Lipke and large oil on canvas paintings by Amy Talluto. The poem tells of two young sisters, Laura and Lizzie, who are tempted by magical fruits sold by goblin men who live among them in the forest. One day, Laura trades a golden curl of her hair for a luscious taste, but then returns home to fall gravely ill. Lizzie out-maneuvers the goblins by bartering for her sister’s cure and freeing them both from their power.
Using paintings and sculpture, the artists will transform the gallery into a seductive and exuberant “wood,” complete with representations of deep forest light, decaying fruit & flora, twisting forms and personified trees. As in the poem, this immersive environment will create a backdrop for the site of a female-empowered experience in a patriarchal society. “The Goblin Market” is often seen as a “biting mockery of male-dominated culture” (Belsey). The goblins are characterized as animalistic, violent & authoritarian and the heroines must outwit them and break apart their system of control to survive. Then as now, that struggle continues as women continue to battle against these power structures all around them. The artists strive to visualize this struggle in the form of a re-created wild writhing forest expanding and contracting within the space.
Meg Lipke creates free-standing floor sculptures using a variety of materials such as canvas, cotton batting, fabric dye, acrylic, ink and wax. Her works are abstract yet suggest tree-like forms and dangling fruits. Each piece is imbued with her memories of place, specifically her family history of industrial cotton milling in England.
Amy Talluto creates oil on canvas and panel paintings that seek out eccentric forms in landscape. Her dense woodlands are characterized by lushness and layered detail that form dreamlike verdant backdrops for the personified trees and natural forms she finds in nature.
Megan Lipke is known for her fabric constructions that play with surface and support and challenge the division of sculpture and painting. A third-generation female textile artist, Lipke cites the women artists in her family as seminal influences in her work. She has had numerous solo and group exhibitions, including a solo shows at Jeff Bailey Gallery and Freight and Volume. She has received an MFA from Cornell University and BA from the University of Vermont. A former resident of Bushwick, and co-owner of the beloved and defunct Bushwick restaurant Northeastern Kingdom, Lipke now lives and works in Ghent, New York.
Amy Talluto was born in New Orleans, LA and earned her BFA from Washington University in St. Louis and her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York. In 2018, she was awarded a NYFA/NYSCA Artist Fellowship in Painting and was an Artforum Critics Pick for her solo exhibition at Black & White Gallery (Brooklyn). She has recently shown her work at Jeff Bailey Gallery, The Berkshire Botanical Garden, the Samuel Dorsky Museum, Geoffrey Young Gallery and Wave Hill Gardens. She has been an Artist in Residence at the Saltonstall Foundation (NY), Ucross Foundation (WY), Provincetown Dune Shacks & the Byrdcliffe Colony (NY). She currently lives and works in Brooklyn and Hurley, NY.
Belsey, Catherine. “Is C. Rossetti’s ‘Goblin Market’
Escapist?” Victorian Web. November , 25, 2004.
UNDERDONK
1329 Willoughby Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11237
Gallery Hours, Saturday and Sunday, 1-6pm or by appointment
