Aurum, an installation by Laetitia Hussain

I've recently begun writing a blog for the Register-Star Newspaper, which will be including a number of reviews of art. Please take a look at my first piece. It's a review of an new installation by Hudson, NY artist Laetitia Hussain at Terenchin Fine Arts in Catskill, NY.

Man and Nature: Aurum, an installation by Laetitia Hussain.

For thousands of years humanity has toiled to mold nature to its own ends, removing that which doesn’t suit its purposes and manipulating that which does. Aurum, a new installation by Hudson artist Laetitia Hussain, at Terenchin Fine Art in Catskill, uses cast-off items, both natural and man-made to talk about the relationship between humanity and nature in its positive and negative aspects.

The gallery, located at 462 Main St., is filled to overflowing with Hussain’s work, mainly sculptures and most covered in gold paint, thus the name of the show “Aurum,” which is Latin for gold. While the work’s gilding helps to integrate the pieces internally and as a whole, they suffer from a loss of the individual color characteristics of the materials used.

The work also suffered from overcrowding. Less is sometimes more and many of the larger pieces lost their impact by being too close to each other in the gallery.

Her wood slice dartboards, while a bit facile, efficiently hammer in the metaphorical aspect of the show. The act of throwing a dart—which the artist encourages—at a beautiful piece of wood, marring the surface, helps force the viewer into an understanding of how humans often affect nature.

Another interesting piece is a tree branch mounted on wood to resemble trophy antlers. It forces the viewer to go beyond thinking only of the animal world and to contemplate humanity’s attitude towards the rest of nature.

The largest piece—and probably the best—incorporates the root system of a tree with various implements associated with farming—pickaxe and pitchfork—affixed to the roots’ ends, while the carved wooden handles of scythes rise out of the top. It plays with this relationship as well but takes it further by the interplay of materials that echo one another. A small reflecting pool below the tree trunk works to expand and reflect the hanging portion of the piece above and gives it a meditative quality that works nicely with the rather wild, dynamic aspect of the tree.

A sculpture of a windmill juxtaposed next to a small wooden piece hanging on the wall, carved to resemble a farmer’s field with crop rows, uses both scale and space to give the viewer a sense of being outside the gallery and while not as intellectually bracing as some of the other pieces is none the less completely engaging.

Hussein includes a large-scale photographic piece in the show featuring a quote by 18th century painter, printmaker and poet William Blake. The words are formed in the large photograph by maple seeds and seems to capture Hussain’s intentions. “The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way,” it reads in part. Her new show goes far in visually exploring those words and the thoughts behind them.



Click here to view images from the show.