Art Review: Roberta Powell – In Humanity

As you walk up to the Peggy R. McConnell Arts Center you will notice interesting, and rather abstract, red and black statues which look like a design choice of the center itself. These statues however, are Roberta Powell’s, the 81 year old artist who has an exhibition in the McConnell Arts Center until April 18. If you continue into the building and up the stairs to the first level you will find her exhibit, entitled In Humanity, a commentary on the socio-political tragedies in our world today.

In this exhibit, as you walk around the room, you will find her famous “Starving Ethiopian People.” This piece is being used as the main focus for its commentary on not only the Ethiopian people, but the more recent disasters in Haiti and Chile. Here you will be confronted by the beautiful, and sometimes frightening, reality of these statues. They are grouped together in various forms of malnutrition, looking hopeless and beaten down.

Powell strives to create these pieces as life-like as possible. She makes them life-size in clay only to be thwarted by the shrinking process which takes place in the kiln. Though her figures shrink to about 2/3 of their size, their expressions are still there, vivid, realistic and emotional.

She has created the life-like statues of the Ethiopian people, but she has also made busts and half-figures depicting affluence, pieces which seem at odds with the vast poverty of the main piece. But these pieces, like “Joan” who is a wealthy business woman adorned with expensive looking jewelry holding a cocktail glass, are clearly commenting on poverty in the face of affluence, a theme in the exhibit. The cocktail glass holds a penny, portraying the idea that the woman is literally drinking wealth or money. Another piece seen in conjunction with this is entitled “Impossible Feat,” a woman caked in mud or some other spa mask trying to relax and rejuvenate, hoping to achieve the “impossible feat” of everlasting youth and commercial beauty.

Aside from this commentary, however, Powell has several other pieces on display. Some of the pieces are realistic, like the Elijah Pierce bust and figure or the Mandela pieces, but others are more abstract like “Beauty.” This piece is a metallic statue, in between the metal spectrum of rose gold and copper, made of clay and taking the loose shape of a woman, but without definite features, simply an abstract piece commenting on beauty itself.

Another piece, much like “Beauty” in its abstract form, is “Sempaternal” which is a bronze statue, the only piece not made of clay within the indoor exhibit. Sculpted in 1983, this piece lends creativity to the viewer to take a personal interpretation from its abstraction.

Powell has a wide range of talent in sculpture, though. She can sculpt statues realistic and abstract and in different materials, but she also creates breath-taking clay pots. All of the pots are functional, though artfully done, some making more comments than others. For example, “Lake Erie,” a pot without handles but beautifully done in the creams and blues and greens of the lake and the sky, a beautiful rendition of its namesake and “The Dreamers,” depicts a couple, one man and one woman serving as the handles, atop a mountain as the landscape behind them on the pot displays majestic, forest green mountains seem the most decorative of her pots displayed in the exhibit.

Despite the wide variety of pieces, this collection makes its commentary astutely as it speaks of the socio-political tragedies of the world. This collection does not just speak of the Ethiopians, though. It speaks of the Haitians, the Chileans, the Jews and all other people who find themselves in a super-disaster both man-made and natural such as starvation. It speaks of oppressed people and injustice as well and inspires us to be generous and reflective of these situations.

Roberta Powell’s exhibit, In Humanity, runs through April 18, 2010 and can be found on the first level of the Peggy R. McConnell Arts Center. Visitors are encouraged to see not only this exhibit, but to explore the rest of the facility as well and take advantage of programs being offered. For hours and more information, go to http://www.mcconnellarts.org.