Review Wehrle Gallery; Exploring Through Images

September 26, 2004
Jacqueline Hall
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Battered objects bring metaphors to life

"Inherent Offerings" is a small, intimate show that inspires meditation, reminiscence and conjecture.

The intimacy is due partly to the small space in which this exhibit is presented -- Ohio Dominican University's Wehrle Gallery. Viewers can come into close contact with each work. The images also have a familiarity that tends to pull deep from many human experiences.

Maureen Fahy describes her work as a metaphoric exploration and a narrative on ancestral foundations.

Many of those foundations are strongly Christian, with references to the Trinity -- the number "3" appears in several pieces -- and many and various images of Mary and saints. The image of a young girl dressed for her first communion is repeated, and there are references to Fahy's family, including the faces of several generations of women. Even Greek mythology is alluded to.

However lofty the foundations, the imagery is generally executed with the mundane.

Kitchen-cabinet doors and drawers supply material for many of Fahy's assembly pieces. Pop art was in full bloom when she was growing up in Columbus. Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg dominated the art scene -- and influenced her approach.

She was trained as a painter at what is now Ohio Dominican University. She still considers herself a painter, although assemblage has become her dominant and favorite medium.

Fahy earned an advanced degree in art therapy from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, and is a practicing art therapist.

Her years in New Mexico deeply influenced her art; bright colors and religious images dominated early works. Since she has returned to Ohio, however, her palette has become more somber. The only brightly colored piece in this exhibit is View of Saint Agnes.

The saint, in a golden niche under a sunny blue sky, is also noteworthy for her northern European Renaissance flavor.

Otherwise, Saint Agnes has much in common with other works. Its frame is an old, battered door frame from a cabinet. Ominously, chicken wire is stretched across the image. Fahy sees the wire as a veil, but it also could be interpreted as imprisonment. Chicken wire appears in several works, always injecting a note of threat. For materials, Fahy tends to favor the battered remains of objects that have seen better days. All works have layers of meanings, some that are obvious and others more obtuse.

When Fahy finds an intriguing piece of material, she said she approaches it intuitively, allowing the shape to inspire her and suggest a story. The cabriole legs with club feet from a discarded piece of furniture led to the whimsical image (with a big knob for a head) in Persephone: Jungfrau blume . Close inspection reveals unexpected layers. The pomegranates scattered around the piece, symbols of regeneration of the earth in mythology, become symbols of the resurrection in Christianity.

Modern Cure: Perpetual Renewal , an assemblage, stimulates speculation on modern medicine versus old remedies -- and the power of prayer.

The exhibit also includes the somewhat spectral monoprint Second Story , which seems to refer to family memories and the spirits of departed members. Room With a View is a digitally manipulated vintage photograph of a young girl in her first communion outfit.

This small show is amazingly rich in content.

The questions it poses have multiple answers.

Reprinted with permission, The Columbus Dispatch, 2004.