Allison Green transforms the traditional still life into something new and active. Her giant flowers are as much animal as vegetable. They toss their heads like starlets, posing against jewel-bright backgrounds. In spring they sally forth in their sleek green wraps, only to explode with passion in summer, then crumple like spent creatures in autumn.
Each plant has its compelling drama: the sunflower labors to lift its face to the sky; the come-hither rose simultaneously repels with its thorns; the seductive lotus lures bees into its core for pollination. They are all playing their roles in the life cycle: rotating through the seasons that are part of birth, procreation and death.
If you look closely, you will also find a supporting cast of tiny characters—spiders dangling from webs, grasshoppers sunning themselves on stems and small violet snails inching along shiny leaves, searching for partners. They too are part of the flux in Green’s mythic world, where plants and animals often seem to be at the mercy of fate.
In “String Theory” Green’s newest group of paintings, humble weaver birds—those small, unassuming, African finches—are the architects of their own destiny. The artist has based this series on very real natural phenomena.
Driven by inexplicable skill and engineering acumen, these birds create nests that combine beauty with durability and tensile strength. The male of the species begins the work, knotting a strand of papyrus grass to a branch, then slowly and painstakingly weaving a finely constructed mesh of fibers around it. If a female deems the nest suitable for habitation, she’ll move in and join the domestic activities. If not, the male will begin his efforts to build a new home and try to attract a mate all over again.
Always alive to the metaphors of nature, Green has incorporated these birds and their extraordinary nests into her artistic pantheon. As she imagines them, the nests are little worlds floating in space—perfect spheres of grass, leaves and vines. Decorated with flowers, butterflies, insects and snails and carefully tended by the diligent birds, the hives are teeming with life, images of the creative process at its most elemental.
With her large paintings of small natural things, Green is part biologist, part magical realist. The spirits of Henri Rousseau, Georgia O’Keeffe and Frida Kahlo seem to hover above these works like benevolent guardians, encouraging us to wander in. If there is a touch of the naïve in Green’s lush gardens, painted in sharp outline on flat backgrounds, and in her woven nests that are as enticing as Easter baskets, there is also a touch of enchantment. After spending time in this Eden, where creatures court and plants pollinate, we find that Green has turned us into Tom Thumbs, small, wide-eyed and amazed.
Mona Molarsky is a New York-based art critic and writer.
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