| Spiders From Mars Dott Schneider’s “Burrows” at Legation Gallery On New Year’s Day, 2009 Dott Schneider walked out into the desert near her home, just east of Las Vegas, intending to take some pictures. Presently she focused her camera’s lens on a curious hole, pulling back as she noticed dozens of nearly identical round holes, an inch or two in diameter, pocking the sun-blasted expanse around her feet. A black, silk-like substance lined the shadowy excavations, and the artist realized she was in the midst of a city, smaller than Vegas but risky, too, in its own way. These were miniature burrows, housing one of the many species of the solitary/social tarantula. A nightmare scenario? Not if you don’t mind hordes of big, hairy spiders. Schneider wasn’t daunted in the least. Known for her expressive “Nervous Bird” series of mixed media paintings showing skeletal birds -- accompanied in one installation by sculptural components that included a pool of red paint and human-looking plaster bones -- it’s fair to say Schneider has an affinity for the macabre. She decided to base a series of works on the spider holes, using their spooky resonance to evoke a healing/wounding, timeless moment of change, specifically the psychic change that she experienced during her time in the desert. The events of that period included the end of a long term relationship, and a birthday hike through Death Valley with a companion who performed a Reiki healing. She says that, cumulatively, “It was like a kick in the sternum.” It all added up to a decision to move back to Ohio, and to paint. rock salt, Schneider’s “Burrows” are semi-abstract meditations on the dynamics of mystery – “What’ s in there?” she asks about the burrows. “I need to know. It’s about looking at something that isn’t there” At Legation twenty-three of Schneider’s painted panels are hung in the main gallery, while another room shows three-dimensional renditions of the burrows, made from painted paper mache, facing each other across the juncture two walls. They look somehow stranded, as if at a low tide or left behind by the death of an ocean, long ago. One of the thoughts underpinning these paintings has to do with the meaning of dryness, of evaporation and the evidence of lingering, scorching heat. Painting very often seems like a kind of chemistry for poets, exploring correlations between psychic states and a smear of color. Sometimes texture and shade, subject and concept fluoresce toward a more vivid understanding of the world. Schneider’s experiments feel their way around the locking and unlocking of molecules of mind, reacting to emotional acids stirred by endings and absence. Like all interesting art, they play with matches, lighting the fuse of the past. Schneider says she’s coming back to her native Cleveland for good. “Unlike LeBron,” she laughs, “I’ ve signed on to Cleveland. And you can quote me!” --Douglas Max Utter Burrows / Dott Schneider Legation Gallery 1300 West 78th St. Cleveland, OH through Sept. 17, 2010 216.334.7080 -- Douglas Max Utter |
