John Hurrell – 25 September, 2010

This three-artist show presents a trio of quite different personalities as indicated by the opposing properties of their work:

Richard Orjis’s photographs are oddly sumptuous digital collages that feature an amusing combination of tacky metallic-papered party decorations with images of jewel encrusted broaches based on reptiles or orchids. Heather Straka, normally a painter, has photographs that deal with dodgy erotic fantasy in the form of a group of young dark haired Asian ‘nurses’ (from different countries) who attend - during a cigarette break - to the naked corpse of a young blonde Caucasion woman. The last, Liyen Chong, presents three very small ‘drawings’: images made of embroidered, tightly wound, white and black hair, swirled to look like shallow bowls. Like little meditative abstractions.

Orjis’ images have a black background that makes the cut out prismatic, brick or flower forms glow with a vibrant theatricality. They are not as classical as his more posed, set up studio photographs were. These are wilder, tizzier and more chaotic with snipped out elements overlapping or blending; golden gem-loaded ingredients tumbling over and into each other.

Straka’s images are all about being cool, studied poses deemed essential for sexual desirability. Cigarettes here for these women are an essential accoutrement, mixed with angular hand positions and exhaled smoke. The strived for eroticism here is funny, not intended to be so, but hilarious anyway.

With Chong’s diminutive images we see three variations of bowls where the angle of looking down into their enclosed spaces changes, and the black hair becomes shadow. These hair drawings are this artist’s best work to date because of their ambiguity and newfound flexibility with two tones. She can now model forms, creating plasticity with ripples or strata of hair filaments. Quite extraordinary.

John Hurrell

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