Art Murmur @Johansson Projects September 4, 2009

Johansson Projects presents the work of Jennie Ottinger, a delicate and haunting display of the familiar suspects stripped of their familiarity. From her ballerina lineups to her team of surgeons, Ottinger's characters contain all the parts in place, yet a lurking trace of disorientation lingers in the way of recognition or comfort. The subjects are more skeletons of flesh than human beings. A crafted impossibility echoes throughout Ottinger's presentation of her pieces in a new kind of narrative network: a dissonant collective instead of a rigid unfurling of cause-and-effect. Ottinger confronts viewers with storybook pages tossed into the wind, forming links between strangers in strange places that transcend conventional story logic. Her cast of fictional characters is conjured from a medley of nonfictional materials-- newspapers, textbooks, and photo archives—and then freed from any storyline to frolic in a storyweb. Every moment of Ottinger's dripping portraits summons a bitter longing to find a home in the imaginary ideals of the happily ever after. While stories often take great liberties to fill in the blanks, Ottinger's mythical portraits employ the ruse of familiarity as a vehicle and a trap, exposing the blank spaces between body parts and storybook pages.

Official Website: http://johanssonprojects.com/jopro.html