Layla Bowles’ November show at the Bellevue Gallery, Embracing the Endangered, is dazzling. 17 collages, small in scale but ambitious in theme, fill the gallery and fill the eyes.
Exploring issues such as addiction and our relationship with the environment, Layla dives deep into the individual and collective unconsciouses, seeking insights. Earnest purpose gives these searches depth; the artist is looking for answers (not that there is ever a final answer). At the same time, a lively sense of humor ensures that each journey remains a buoyant one. There is darkness but there is also light.
The show’s title piece sets a tone. Urgently red fills the picture. A woman seems dirty and scarred and perhaps in trouble, a situation hinted at by a giant hovering vulture, which she seems to push aside. Or is she ecstatically dancing? Perhaps drunk? Her third eye, her eye of spiritual insight, is wide open but her prosaic eyes are blind. Should we worry for her or try to be more like her?
There is something godlike about some of the beings who inhabit Layla’s show. A strangely fire-like creature has eyes full of wisdom, but is unable to speak.
Another being who is wearing an owl mask seems to teeter between male and female stereotypes - is any of it real, he seems to wonder? Is he connected with Athena?
A possible forest nymph sprouts leaves instead of hair.
In one hallucinogenic piece, a busy city fills most of the sky. From this city emanates an ancient skull. From the ancient skull a tiny modern brain seems to falling or floating out. A giant sparrow or finch seems to be crushing a detiorating road house with its tail. The bird is holding what looks like a slice of human brain as if it were a leaf. What does it all mean? What does a dream mean?
Another city seems to connect more harmoniously to its natural environment, but in itself seems more regimented, less natural. An electric guitar that seems to be a bottle that seems to be a foot seems to be exploding into space, spurting an attenuated face with burning eyes. Is it a genie created by the burning sands that, over millenia, carved away the massive cliffs?
In one of the exhibit’s more surprisingly beautiful moments, Einstein’s brain is revealed to have a visual texture akin to the visual texture of a gnarled apple tree. Einstein himself seems to wonder why this would surprise anyone.
Natural elements play a key role in another collage made mostly out of onion skins. An incorporated Dali face seems surprised at such an outbreak of organic energy, but a tiny dancer seems very at home.
The largest collage in Layla’s show is the one that addresses addiction most directly. Words spell out its message: that the war on drugs might not be what it seems. But such words aren’t needed. A Bosch-like toad creature seems to distribute drugs above a kind of river Styx, where Charon boatmen ferry skeletal lost souls.
Another skeleton lounges/dances in a military graveyard, covered in bling and flanked by two anciently mossy trees. Serious as a graveyard, this image is also ridiculous and funny and offers up, as well, a lovely tour de force of visual textures. We seem to be entertaining ourselves to death, to borrow a phrase, but as long as we have art, on one hand, and nature, on the other hand, we can achieve at least some semblance of joy and beauty?
One of the strangest and funniest pieces seems to evoke a kind of fishy Medusa, recalling Archimboldo.
In another playful collage, two bejeweled snake fish seem to swim amongst the beams of an ancient eastern temple, to the surprise of a ground-roosting bird.
Is there an implied contrast between worldly delights and spiritual delights?
In perhaps the same temple, a cat makes friends with a nesting bird, while floating on a disc of light in elaborate pumps. What is this kitty up to?
Another magical character sports a Little Richard bouffant, made up out of old school bits of technology, such as wheels and gears. His arms are centipede-like creatures and his feet are giant diatoms and his attitude is rockabilly, but the aura he gives off is blues. This is someone who can live in many worlds at once.
Another collage seems to be entitled It’s Only Words. Instant refridgerator-poetry words are pasted onto ancient chinese clay warriors, leaving us to ponder if they fit or not, while pointing teo the individuality of these characters whose individuality seems to have been effaced. Thought of as a group - the chinese warriors - they are also individuals.
One of the most enigmatic collages seems to depict a feathery twilight garden, where a hoofer seems to be dancing, twirling her straw hat on her finger tips. Her partner is a plant that has a human nose for a stem and bright red lips for a flower. Instead of a sun providing light there is a wall lamp. It is a beguiling world, but artificial.
Layla's show seems to end on a note of quiet strength. What seems to be a shaman appears in sepia colors of quiet dignity, surrounded by an intense red of emotional strength, wearing a slightly irridescent bird headress made from possibly quilted flag material. Perhaps what is most endangered and most important for us to embrace is our ancient wisdom.
Red means something different in what seems to be the show's final, summarizing image of an addiction sufferer. She seems elegant but distressed, living in an oppressive grey world that is at the same time blood soaked. She fiercely gobbles pills, as if to find relief in the act of consumption. She has a mouth for an ear as if she has forgotten how to listen. But you can tell that deep down she is listening, for something. Like the artist she seems to be searching for answers.
Embracing the Endangered is a little show, but also a big one, overflowing with ideas. The gallery encourages visitors to not just look, but also to spend some time with the art, reflecting and discussing.
