Artist Donovan Crosby is showing her wonderfully creepy work at sixspace gallery in Culver City, CA from July 1 – August 12, 2006. It reminds me a little of Marc Davis' paintings in Disney's Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean.
This summer sixspace is proud to present Kindertotenlieder, the first solo exhibition by California-based artist Donovan Crosby. In her new acrylic paintings (on canvas and panel), she portrays Victorian-era children with flowers. Using the saccharine iconography of the 19th century, Crosby plays on the irony and perhaps oversimplification of our idealized expectations regarding the imagery of children or flowers. Often perceived merely as "pretty little things," each can carry within a fundamental "darkness" and complexity that, while disturbing in some regards, is also a natural component.
The depiction of certain flowers in Kindertotenlieder reference a "language of flowers" that was a common tradition in Napoleonic France through Victorian-era England. Citing two authoritative historical sources, Crosby utilized floral meanings that have meanings such as "absence," "reverie," and "hatred" that counter-act the quaint notion that flowers, and subsequently children, are wholesome and simplistic – for instance, the symbolic use of flowers was as much present in superstition and proverbs as it was communications and ceremonies. These dark undertones also signify the horrible living conditions many children suffered during the 19th century.
