Review: Marisa Adesman’s Forklore at Anat Ebgi
Photo courtesy the artist and Anat Ebgi. Photos by Matthew Kroening.
Celebrating with tacos and drinks in hand, Anat Ebgi’s recently expanded gallery space on Wilshire Boulevard is a destination onto itself. Located adjacent to Los Angeles’s Museum Row, a crowd filled with art world luminaries and gallery aficionados amassed itself inside and outside on the garden-lined patio for the GALA (Gallery Association Los Angeles) weekend of events. Indisputably, Marisa Adesman’s Forklore shines brightly amidst a sea of recent painting exhibitions in the city.
As the artist’s first solo exhibition in Los Angeles, Adesman conjures up a magnificent display of technical ability reminiscent of 20th century surrealist painters. Opening Night, 2021, the largest of the works exhibited, magnetically draws the viewer into its sophisticatedly rendered peculiarities. A glasslike, translucent nude female figure theatrically lifts a tablecloth with flesh-like hands. The figure also features fleshy pink feet standing in a field of grass with red poppies and ladybugs polka dotting the floor. Behind the transparency is a table set with intricately detailed plates and silverware. An auspicious moon rises in the center, cleverly placed in the work to act as a feminine face for the figure. Framing the horizon is a hazy array of clouds and anthropomorphic hedges that appear engaged in their own narrative.
Marisa Adesman. Opening Night, 2021. Photo courtesy the artist and Anat Ebgi. Photos by Matthew Kroening.
Speaking with Adesman over a phone call, I enquired about the purpose and meaning of hiding and bisecting the female figure. In response Adesman explained her work is meant to shed light onto “unseen forces,” “unseen labors,” and the power dynamics that go unnoticed in realms of domesticity. Adesman seeks to interrogate nuclear family structures and challenges the perception of machismo attitudes. In traditional households the dining room is a space “choreographed by women” where the man sits at the head of the table. Historically, women have been expected to cook, set the table, and clean the dining space. Invisible labor impacts a variety of marginalized groups of people, however this reality has been even more indiscreet for child-rearing women tasked with maintaining their households.
Upon further contemplation of Adesman’s work, I found myself drawn to a painting of two twisting pieces of cutlery titled Forkplay, 2021. This slightly skewed double entendre on the word “foreplay” suggests a heightened sense of intimacy between the utensils. As the fork dives under a purple checkered tablecloth, the spoon faces the viewer and mirrors the reflection of two humans engaged in intercourse. Even more alluring is the meticulous wood detail featuring a medieval inspired scene of figures in positions of Kama Sutra.
With so much covering up of what goes on in society, Adesman aims to playfully subvert and disorient the viewer. Referencing South Asian stone carvings and Victorian wood carving, the artist intrinsically warps puritanical narratives and ancient Hindi eroticism. By using familiar objects to create an immediate association for the audience, the utensils act as protagonists and embody their mirrored human counterparts. It should be noted that Adesman is exceptionally thoughtful in how she plays with a painterly perception that includes the out of focus backcloth, silhouette of the fork’s prongs under the tablecloth, and blurred purple tints reflected on the metallic gleam of the cutlery.
Marisa Adesman. That Sinking Feeling, 2021. Photo courtesy the artist and Anat Ebgi. Photos by Matthew Kroening.
That Sinking Feeling, 2021, is Adesman’s response to Ophelia, 1851-52, by Sir John Everett Millais. The work shows a writhing fork in a pose of submission amidst despondent, unaltered dishes in a sink with soapy water. Vegetables float on the surface with a submerged tomato slice descending to the bottom. Similarly, Millais’ work depicts a floating, youthful Ophelia slowly becoming engulfed in a river setting surrounded by a variety of flowers. While Millais articulates a statement between life and death, Adesman investigates ideas of purity and impurity.
When placing Adesman in an art historical analysis, the works of Leonora Carrington including Green Tea, 1942, Dorothea Tanning’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, 1943, and Rene Magritte’s Les valeurs personnelles, 1952, are but a few seminal surrealist works that support the artists’ examination of societal perception and the whimsical subconscious. Bending time and space, while anthropomorphizing banal objects, Adesman negotiates the physiological components that make up the everyday human experience. In addition, there is a clear link to Adesman’s work and that of 15th century Dutch artists, such as Willem Claesz Heda’s Breakfast Piece, 1647 and Pieter Claesz’s Still Life, 1625, who devoted their entire practices to vanitas still life painting.
On a final note, Marisa Adesman projects a bright future for the world of painting. Adesman vacillates between large and small-scale paintings with scrupulous concentration, allowing space for intimate reflection. Her profound consideration for detail recalls the formal analysis of close object study in art history. Furthermore, the introspection generated from her thought processes embrace the viewer and invite the audience to become more aware of their surroundings.
Folklore closes on September 11. For more information, please visit Anat Ebgi.