By Anthony Huffman, Independent Curator and Critic
Carolyn Oberst’s robust body of painting, drawing, and sculpture has interrogated the construction of memory, patterning and nostalgia, themes of self-fashioning, and how codes of behavior are embedded in all forms of visual media. While historically she has used vintage toys as a source of inspiration, in her more recent work she incorporates icons culled from contemporary culture.
In the series “Back Story” (2014-19), she examines ideas about memory processing and forms of expression while also wrestling with questions about representation and the role that media plays in structuring societal attitudes and norms, from coloring books and paper dolls to magazines and films.
For the works in this series, there is no overarching narrative structure—a visual strategy deployed to engage the viewer in his or her interpretation of the constructed pastiche of figures, forms, and references. These motifs can be combined and re-combined to arrive at distinctly different outcomes based on an individual’s experiences and assumptions.
Two of her most recent painting illustrates these concepts.
“From What You Know to What You Need to Find”, 2019, oil on canvas, 48”h. x 60”w.
In From What You Know to What You Need to Find (2019), figurative vignettes and patterned shapes drift and commingle across the flat surface of the painting, seeming to be set within the recesses of the mind. The strategic juxtaposition of organic and geometric forms in her composition serves as one way of visualizing the internal impulses of the mind. Reason and order are represented by the shapes and the amorphous shards stand in for past subjective experiences.
Regarding the figures, Oberst plays with how profile, contour, posture, and gesture have the ability to communicate traits about anonymous subjects. Some of the figures, as if excerpted from larger narratives, have more defined features than others, which points to the formation of memories and the recollection processes.
The shades of pink, blue, and green used to define silhouettes of the abstracted figures are comparable to the palettes commonly used in children’s storybooks, imparting a whimsical sense to the work. In fact, the seated male figure with arms crossed is situated within a fantastical plot of forest, deep in thought and almost receding into the dense thicket of trees.
Along these same lines, the central female character whose Rapunzelian hair merges with the blue undulating line that diagonally cuts across the canvas, conjures up ideas about stream of consciousness and the articulation of thoughts and feelings. Given Oberst’s thematic interests and the title of this painting, the female figure encourages viewers to consider the necessary balance between raw, unmediated expression and more rationalized, guarded modes of communication.
“How We Begin to Remember”, 2019, oil on canvas, 48”h. x 60”w.
The painting, How We Begin to Remember (2019), notably contains a greater variety of colors and shapes, creating a strong vibrant effect. Characters appear in repetitive or sequential orders, as if playing through a filter in the subconscious; though each iteration is rendered in a slightly different hue. These formal elements call to mind cartoons, comics, films, and the entertainment industry more broadly. In particular, the use of squares in this composition alludes to the screen—both cinema and television.
Contemporary cultural icons have been inserted or spliced into the work, exploring how absorption of media at all ages has an indelible impact on conception of self and others. Oberst is interested in how analog and digital media have the capacity to re-affirm or challenge societal expectations and conventions about gender, identity, and behavior.
As such, the banding of jagged edges—reminiscent of sprocket perforations on film strips—might be read as a rupture in dominant narratives produced and circulated in contemporary visual media.