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diversions
Exposing artsy
seduction
By Glenn Zucman
Special to the On-line Forty-Niner
Down in the Design
Department Gallery, a seduction is taking place. Denise Figueredo
is pulling the covers back and letting you look at her art.
Of course, if you want to touch, you'll have to pay.
The occasion for
this seduction is Figueredo's master of fine arts thesis show,
which is open from noon to 5 p.m. daily through Thursday or
possibly Friday.
Figueredo's hard-to-classify
objects derive from the book arts. Her intricate, arcane worlds
unfold from unassuming boxes.
"All the small
pieces are very structured and compartmentalized, I have a
thing about packaging -- that's why I like covers on them,"
Figueredo said. "A package...is completely as important
as [what's inside]."
Of course, like
any good seduction, once you're under the spell, you have
to pay.
Asked if she sees
a dichotomy between the tactile, physical qualities she imparts
in her small, personal objects and the removal of the gallery
setting, Figueredo said she doesn't like people to touch her
work.
"It's kind
of the idea, 'you wanna touch it, you buy it,'" she said.
And like games,
these objects reveal something of the gamers, perhaps something
about the viewer, and certainly something about the artist.
The show is entitled,
"Microscopic Delineation" and Figueredo explains
delineation is "a map ? looking very closely at something
and mapping it, and in this case, it's me."
Figueredo added
that this is the first time that she had some emotional content,
"but I've still managed to do it in a somewhat removed
way, and that's my style."
"Whether or
not people get that is irrelevant, because it is graphic,"
she said. "My feeling about work is that I shouldn't
have to explain it to anyone and I don't want to.
"Because you're
going to get what you want to out of it and as long as you
get something out of it, that's great! If you don't, fine."
A number of the
works in Figueredo's show feature butterflies trapped in glorious,
shimmering and troubling Plexiglas worlds. This work "stems
from an emotional time in my life. It has to do with a sense
of feeling trapped, a sense of containment. And that's why
all the pieces start out in closed boxes that are black and
unfold into something else."
In her work process,
Figueredo said ideas tend to come to her as a whole.
"I have the
whole idea in my head, down to the last detail, and I just
make it," she said. "People in the arts [expect
you to] sketch and ponder over things and put it down and
'what do you think about this' and 'where's this gonna go'
-- I just don't work that way."
Figueredo's works
rely on a powerful black, red and white palette. In addition
to the real butterflies, she makes extensive use of silk-screened
Plexiglas and fabric.
"Plexiglas,
it's my thing...it's clean and I really like translucency,"
she said.
Her "3D mixed-media"
master's degree in fine art is technically in "fiber
art."
"I like hand
work and I like to be busy all the time," she said. "Fiber
can lend itself to that. You can always do something. I like
that fabric can be a clean slate."
Figueredo's graduate
committee chair, Carol Shaw-Sutton, said sees this exotic
use of fiber as very typical for the CSULB fiber arts program.
"The last
fiber graduate show we had was all woven wire that was on
a computerized loom," Shaw-Sutton said. "They were
architectural pieces that were like a staircase that was made
out of layers of woven wire that was very minimal and ethereal
and glistened, it was quite beautiful.
"The fiber
department is quite diverse, that's part of what's really
wonderful about it," she added.
Shaw-Sutton said
Figueredo always did really well in her courses "because
she's very meticulous and very organized."
"She really
likes the idea of things being hidden," she added. "They're
puzzles, and seeing them all together helps give you keys
to the puzzle. Those are city maps, some of those things remind
me of the circulatory system which is also like rivers and
streets, so it connects the body to the landscape and layers
of patterns inside and outside."
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