The beauty of death and decay

Christy Schicker
Lifestyles Reporter

Visual art has the capability of revealing truth to us in the most direct and silently forceful way.

It can confront us with realizations that amaze or frighten us, yet it does so quietly, without drama.

The work of Terry Towery, on display at Webster University's May Gallery, explores themes of decay and death in a way that is poignant and disturbing. The exhibit "Figurative Decay" features photographs by Towery showing cracked and broken porcelain dolls.

All the pieces in the show are untitled and most are small in size, about 9 inches by 13 inches. The few larger ones are about 30 inches by 40 inches, and all are composed in painted black wooden frames.

The photographs, which are digitized and mounted onto canvas or plywood, are then splattered with oil paint or acrylics and encrusted with materials such as iron, charcoal and dry pigments. This gives the pieces a gritty, rusty surface texture, while the red paint splattered or dripped on the surface has the appearance of blood.

Images include depictions of doll faces, legs and hands, or whole bodies that are emaciated or deformed. Some of the faces are so extensively cracked that facial features become indistinguishable.

Several of the photographs are close-ups of doll heads tilted backwards with mouths agape. These images recall the horror of photographs taken in war, with frozen expressions of terror painted on the nameless faces of bodies strewn across a battlefield.

One piece shows two small heads very close together. Both faces lean in towards each other while one contains a worried expression. An intimate quality is conveyed in this piece, where the two faces appear to be telling each other secrets. A moment of conversation is shared of which the viewer is not allowed to be a part of.

Another piece shows a doll's face with cloudy blue ink pooling around the eyes and spilling down the face in dark tears. The mouth, painted deep red, is also shown dripping from the corners down the chin like small streams of blood.

The image of the doll in the midst of destruction and death is most disturbing because people associate dolls with the innocence of childhood.

One of the pieces shows a human face showing underneath cracked, brittle portions of porcelain falling away from the fleshy skin. Protruding eyes are veiled beneath closed lids, revealing a black, crescent shaped line where they shut. Tufts of frayed material gather around the neck.

The softness and vulnerability of human life is stressed in this piece, where the tough outer skin built up over a lifetime is finally shed during the moments before death.

The same face of this piece is repeated in another photograph where the entire body of the doll is shown. The body is made of thin, elongated tubes of stuffed white material. It lies in an awkward and painful-looking position, with one leg bent at the knee and swept completely across the other side of the body.

Other pieces in the show are also duplicates or details of other photographs, where Towery simply adds different surface textures.

Through the process of stretching the canvas and treating it with polyurethane or shellac for protection, the canvas buckles and creases. Bubbles form that are probably unintentional, but some of the shapes resemble human chromosomes floating across the image. This adds another dimension to the human content of the work.

Twenty-two photographs by Towery are included in this exhibit. "Figurative Decay" will be on display until March 3. The May Gallery is located on the second floor of the Sverdrup Building at Webster University.

Webster University is located at 8300 Big Bend Blvd. in St. Louis. For more information call the gallery at (314) 961-2660 ext. 7673, or visit their web site at http://www.webster.edu/~maygallery.