Lots and Lots of Comfort Food

by Clea Felien

The current show at Soo Visual Arts Center (SooVAC) is called Comfort Food—something everyone in Minnesota wants in March, and lots of it. Here you don’t have to worry about putting on the excess pounds, it’s comfort food for your mind and your soul.

Andrea Petrini creates wall pieces out of found objects, linen and thread. There are approximately 10 pieces. The first piece, “Balloon,” is just that, an appliquéd balloon with embroidered basket. The cloth is aged, with all the nostalgic qualities it has to offer.

The second piece, “Snow Walk,” shows an embroidered figure of a man walking across a snowy landscape. Again we see appliqué and the lovely qualities of the aged cloth. Whimsical, and sweet, these narrative works have a haunting feeling. Petrini uses light colors of cloth and a fine line of embroidery to create a delicate and beautiful series of works.

Her drawings are not as successful. Labored and unsure of themselves, two framed pencil sketches titled “NYC 98,” appear to be a travel journal. They don’t seem to belong to her other works which are extremely well thought-out and deftly executed. There is also a wonderful, deflated, old, brown punching bag with white polka dots painted on it. This is a wonderfully funny and elegant piece. It is also a brilliant combination of Sigmar Polke and Eva Hesse styles.

Michael Hoyt’s “Noraebang (song room)” is a complex wall installation. Maps of Korea and Minneapolis are painted on the wall. Mounted on the maps are televisions made of wood with paintings of people singing on the TV screens. The singing figures are painted in warm brown tones of umber and sienna on what looks almost like a papier mache surface. Deftly crafted, the TVs sing out to us, karaoke style. The Korean TVs have Korean words painted across presumably the words to the songs we hear being sung. The TV representing Minneapolis has “But I’m strong enough to” painted across it. The singing we hear emanating from the TV screens is familiar and charming, but painful enough that you won’t want to get too close. Assumedly Hoyt is showing the parallels between these places and cultures. This globalization piece exemplifies the similarities between Koreans and Minneapolitans (i.e. we both like to get drunk and sing).

Suzy Greenberg’s installation “Full of Grace” operates on many levels. As we enter the “sanctuary,” we first see the Madonna, in a state of beatitude, and made entirely of corn. The walls are wallpapered with square pieces of white bread, and the floor is a beautiful mosaic of bathroom scales. The floor of scales combines scales from the ’50s ’60s ’70s and ’80s showing the many incarnations of the bathroom scale. It is mesmerizing to look at. For those of you (like myself) horrified by the bathroom scale, these are extremely playful; they come in glorious colors and wonderful shapes and sizes. The best part of the scales is that most, if not all, of them are programmed to show numbers much lower than you actually weigh, unless I lost 30 pounds and didn’t notice. The corn Madonna sits on a throne made of a meat scale, in a little shrine in the center of the wall facing the entrance, in a loving, humble pose. The white bread, bathroom scales and corny Madonna are brilliantly integrated, and wholly/holy original. This piece is full of irony with a wonderful sense of humor.

Jean Humke has created an intriguing combination of rubber cushion and tree sculpture. Alison Gerber’s “Love Stories” is a sound installation. Snippets of people’s lives emanate from small round black boxes. Helena Keefe’s “Letters” is a pillow with a voice box. John Knuth and Christopher Salveter’s “Tent” is a sheet of pink Pepto Bismal stretched over a wooden frame surrounded by a dried up pool of Milk of Magnesia. This show is rife with delicious imagery and much to comfort Minnesotans as we come out of our long, dark, cold winter.

Comfort Food continues through Apr. 6. Soo Visual Arts Center, 2640 Lyndale Ave. S., Mpls. 612-871-2263.