Ann Wood: Violent Delights October 19, 2012

Ann Wood incorporates two- and three-dimensional pieces into an immediate and dramatic environment. The work has a Rococo visual appeal that references topiaries, floral bouquets, desserts as well as historical painting and sculpture. While the exhibition is traditionally beautiful and looks as if it might even taste good, it slowly reveals a disturbing underbelly. It contains hidden and obvious vignettes of danger, death, deception, and decay woven throughout. Themes of decadence and over-indulgence quickly become sickening. In the two-dimensional work, embroidered, heroic animals hang from bows or lie dead in a symmetrical embrace, decaying and swarmed by flies, in the tradition of Spanish and Dutch still lives.