Alice Leora Briggs -ASYLUM

ALICE LEORA BRIGGS A S Y L U M voted 60 Fall Gallery Shows You Can’t Miss artnet News, Wednesday, September 3, 2014

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ALICE LEORA BRIGGS | ASYLUM Disquiet has marked art since its beginnings: the success and failures of Paleolithic hunts, the tides of slaves who filled Egyptian tombs, the memento moris of Dutch stilled lives, the spears of Shakespearean wit. Likewise, occupation with human frailty and worldly conceits is integral to Alice Leora Briggs’ work. When she was seven years old, her brother fell to his death at Grand Teton National Park. And, perhaps as a result, Briggs probes with curiosity and intensity those facets of human life that we often seek to closet. The artist finds her subject in the narco-violence that plagues Ciudad Juárez and in an asylum built by a visionary on the outskirts of this Mexican border city. Briggs’ explores the daily adaptations made by the citizens of the narco-battered borderlands. She renders them in her native amalgam of classic and contemporary imagery and oblique narratives coaxed from European art history.

In tandem a recent series of woodcuts explores a twelve-line universe, The Room, a poem by American poet laureate, Mark Strand. Each of her images conjures one line from the poem. The world she creates is brittle, tenuous, and furtive. The images glimpse into concealed longings and secrets, like looking into someone’s emotional closet. In her persistent way, all of Briggs’ work finds a way to link our contemporary anxieties, desires, and expectations with those of the art historical past. Her visual quotations from Albrecht Durer, Hans Holbein, Hendrik Goltzius, and others meld seemingly incongruent worlds into the singular time and place of her drawings.

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Arkansas Art Center Border Art Residency, El Paso, TX Carlton College Gould Library Special Collections, Sherwin Beach Press Collection Cornell University, Main Library Special Collections Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Denver Art Museum El Paso Museum of Art Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, De Young Firestone Graham Foundation, Albuquerque, NM Flatbed Press, Austin, TX Fort Hays State University, Fort Hays, KS Larry E. Elsner Art Foundation, Logan, UT Library of Congress, Rare Books/Special Collections Limerick School of Art and Design, Limerick, Ireland McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, TX Međunarodna galerija portreta, Tuzla, Bosnai Hercegovina Museum of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX

Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art, Utah State University Phoenix Art Museum Richard M. Ross Art Museum, Ohio Wesleyan University Rochester Institute of Technology Libraries, Cary Collection Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale AZ Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ University of Arkansas at Little Rock, UALR Gallery University of Arizona, Special Collections, Art of the Book Collection University of Chicago Library Special Collections, Rare Books University of Iowa Museum of Art University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Blue Heron Press Collection, Artists’ Books University of New Mexico Art Museum University of Oxford, Bodleian Library Sherwin Beach Press, Chicago, IL Wichita Falls Museum of Art

Cover: La Ventana woodcut on BFK with Kitakata chine collé (edition of ten) printed by Tracy Mayrello, Flatbed Press Austin, Texas, 60 x 40 La Ventana is a lifesize portrait of Santiago, a resident of an asylum on the outskirts of Juárez.

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Butcher (portait of Charles Bowden), sgraffito with acrylic ink on panel, 24 x 18

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Estrangular, 2009/2014, sgraffito with acrylic ink on panel, 11 x 14

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La Anexada, 2014, sgraffito with acrylic ink on panel, 11 x 14

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Puesto, 2014, sgraffito drawing with acrylic ink on panels, 18 x 48

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Necessary Tools (portrait of Charles Bowden), 2010, sgraffito drawing on panel, 36 x 24

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Birdsong, 2012, sgraffito with acrylic ink on panel, 20 x 16

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BURN DRAWINGS The burn drawings were created in the same manner that I record private thoughts in a diary 9

these burned experiments were not initially conceived of as food for anyone’s thoughts but my own. And some of these drawings will remain private for the foreseeable future. I have always been influenced by the works of exceptional bards and have had the good fortune to collaborate with Charles Bowden for over a decade. These drawings are covered over with his words as well as mine.

Alice Leora Briggs

A Patch of Earth, 2013-2014, burn drawing with ink and gesso on handmade paper, 5 x 22

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Starless Dark, 2014, burn drawing with ink and collage on handmade paper, 5 x 22

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3633 Acequia Parsioneros, 2010-2011, burn drawing with ink and collage on handmade paper, 5 x 22

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Blister, 2010, burn drawing with ink and collage on handmade paper, 5 x 22

Blunder, 2010, burn drawing with ink and collage on handmade paper, 5 x 22

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Flight, 2011, burn drawing with ink and collage on handmade paper, 5 x 22

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It is Always This Way, 2010-2011, burn drawing with ink and collage on handmade paper, 5 x 22

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No One Will Explain the Details, 2011-2012, burn drawing with ink, gesso and collage on handmade paper, 5 x 22

Ordinary, 2010-2011, burn drawing with ink on handmade paper, words by Charles Bowden, 5 x 22

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The Adventures of Reason, 2010-2011, burn drawing with ink and gesso on handmade paper, 5 x 22

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Discount, 2006/2010, sgraffito drawing on panel, 60 x 40

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Perros De La Frontera (double dog), 2012, sgraffito drawing on panels, 16 x 10

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Camp, 2009, sgraffito drawing on panels, framed: 12 x 29.5

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Los Pelos Duros, 2014, sgraffito with acrylic ink on panel, 11 x 14

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Babylon, 2014, sgraffito drawing with acrylic ink on panel, 36 x 24

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Collapse Of the Home: Tejas, 2010 (pop-up book), lithographs, opened book: 16 x 8 x 7, edition of 13 Collaps of the Home: Tejas was a collaboration organized by Railsmith, an informal group of artists who engineered and produced this hand-printed, lithographic, pop-up book in a limited-edition of 13.

A group of artists residing in Texas were invited to participate in Railsmith’s Collapse of the Home Project. The artists included are: Alice Leora Briggs, Veronica Ceci, Tom Druecker, Sterling Allen and Krista Peters. The production of the book was made possible with support in part from the Austin Community Foundation, and the city of Austin Cultural Funding Program.

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FU2

seven linocuts on Stonehenge with gampi chine collĂŠ (unique print), printed by Patrick Masterson Burning Bones Press, ouston, Texas, 41 x 62

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The Room It is an old story, the way it happens sometimes in winter, sometimes not.

The listener falls to sleep, the doors to the closets of his unhappiness open

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and into his room the misfortunes come — death by daybreak, death by nightfall their wooden wings bruising the air Their shadows the spilled milk the world cries over.

There is a need for surprise endings; the green field where cows burn like newsprint, where the farmer sits and stares, where nothing, when it happens, is never terrible enough.

Mark Strand

This woodcut inspired me to create a suite of 12 additional woodcuts devoted to Strand’s poem, The Room. This print with hand-lettering is however, not part of the suite. It is a unique, un-editioned print.

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The Room

woodcut on BFK Rives with Kitakata chine collĂŠ (unique proof), printed by Tracy Mayrello, Flatbed Press, Austin, Texas, 17 x 20 The handwritten text below the image is a poem by Mark Strand.

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There Is a Need For Surprise Endings, woodcut on BFK Rives with Kitakata chine collĂŠ(unique proof), printed by Tracy

Mayrello, Flatbed Press, Austin Texas, 20 x 17 (Note: Portrait of Lubbock artist, Ken Dixon)

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The Listener Falls To Sleep

woodcut on BFK Rives with Kitakata chine collĂŠ (unique proof), printed by Tracy Mayrello, Flatbed Press, Austin Texas, 20 x 17 Note: Portrait of my 94 year old father

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The Green Field Where Cows Burn Like News, print woodcut on BFK Rives with Kitakata chine collĂŠ (unique proof)

printed by Tracy Mayrello, Flatbed Press, Austin Texas, 20 x 17 [Note: Portrait of San Antonio artist Chris Sauter with his partner Rick, visiting with Seigfried (owned by San Antonio artist Margaret Craig)]

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Where the Farmer Sits and Stares

woodcut on BFK Rives with Kitakata chine collé (unique proof), printed by Tracy Mayrello, Flatbed Press, Austin Texas, 20 x 17 (Note: Portrait of Teto, resident of a Juárez asylum)

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Where Nothing When It Happens is Never Terrible Enough

woodcut on BFK Rives with Kitakata chine collĂŠ (unique proof) printed by Tracy Mayrello, Flatbed Press, Austin Texas, 20 x 17 (Note: Based in part on a visit to the JuĂĄrez morgue and the annual Landarts dinner)

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And Into His Room the Misfortunes Come 2

(color trial proof), woodcut on BFK Rives with Kitakata chine collĂŠ (unique proof) printed by Tracy Mayrello, Flatbed Press, Austin Texas, 20 x 17 (Note: Adam and Eve are sited in the backyard of the home of Molly Molloy and Charles Bowden in Las Cruces, New Mexico)

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And Into His Room the Misfortunes Come 1

(color trial proof), woodcut on BFK Rives with Kitakata chine collĂŠ (unique proof) printed by Tracy Mayrello Flatbed Press, Austin Texas, 20 x 17 (Note: Adam and Eve are sited in the backyard of the home of Molly Molloy and Charles Bowden in Las Cruces, New Mexico)

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Sklep Fop, woodcut on BFK Rives with Kitakata chine collĂŠ (edition of ten)

printed by Tracy Mayrello, Flatbed Press, Austin, Texas, 17 x 20

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In Case You forgot..., 2013, woodcut on mulberry, 24 x 12, edition of 12

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The Problem, 2010, sgraffito with acrylic ink on panel, 7 x 5

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Limpieza Social, 2012, sgraffito with acrylic ink on panel, 8 x 10

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Clavo, 2012, sgraffito with acrylic ink on panel, 14 x 11

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Basta, 2012, sgraffito with acrylic ink on panel, 24 x 18

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Altar Parsioneros (altar closed), 2010, sgraffito drawings on five panel custom maple tableau, 50 x 50 x 18 Altar Parsioneros, 2010, sgraffito drawings on 5 panels, 4 @ 40 x 15 inches and 1 panel @ 32 x 40 inches, custom maple frame with handmade latches.

In this 5 panel tableau I make use of Jacques Louis David’s Death of Socrates to evoke institutional politics of the United States and Mexico. An unshaven Felipe Calderon masquerades as Socrates. He lies on his bed, waiting for the inevitable cup of poison. Barack Obama plays the part of the wealthy friend, Crito. He beseeches Calderon/Socrates not to kill himself since the world will surely blame Obama/Crito for failing to prevent his suicide.

Altar Parsioneros pays homage to twelve men who were tortured and murdered, then buried in the back yard of an upscale condo in a middle class neighborhood in Juárez. Between August 2003 and January 2004, this home served as a cartel “death house” and featured a graveyard

beneath the patio. For me, this condo on the corner of Parsioneros and Acequia Mayor is a touchstone that marks the beginning of some deeply conflicted feelings about Juårez: knowing things I’d rather not know and an inability to stop digging for more and more details.

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Altar Parsioneros (altar open), 2010, sgraffito drawings on five panel custom maple tableau, 50 x 50 x 18

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Eden, 2009, sgraffito drawing with acrylic on panels, framed: 12 x 29.5

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Ejecutado, 2009, sgraffito drawing on panels, framed: 15 x 23

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Levantado, 2013, sgraffito drawing on panel 18 x 24

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