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Dian Blomquist
Works on Paper
April, 2013
She began with pastels of flowers and fruit, as seen in this Canessa Gallery show. Her fascination with Islamic art, fueled by trips to Istanbul, Central Asia and Morocco, emerges in recent works based on Persian and Indian miniatures. These pieces utilize geometric patterns and exhibit the flat decorative quality of Islamic texts. They are like mysterious pages from the great book of art that each of us can be a part of--if only we allow ourselves to release the artist within. --Carolyn Miller
How does the body affect our emotional well-being? How does the mind try to right itself after physical and emotional injury? In Van Houten's case, the painstaking and time-consuming construction of works of art is a way of trying to understand and express psychological damage and bodily harm. A fleshy poinsettia-like flower illustrates the mechanics of emotional entrapment; an obsessively constructed sarcophagus evokes the suspension of both the body and disbelief; a human head in traction shows us how we try to hold fractured beliefs in place. Instruments of entrapment and physical invasion are displayed in mandala-like formations on the walls. —Carolyn Miller
