Arlene Shechet: Puja


Buddhism at its core concerns transience.  The three editions that Shechet made for A/D, while they are very much real sculpture on a small scale–sculpture that you can put in your pocket–are made for travel, to be tucked away in one's suitcase and set out on a window sill in a guest room, a bureau in a hotel room.  One of the editions is unlimited:  a sand-cast iron Buddha in a padded silk bag.  The other, limited edition contains five objects in a hand-made goatskin case: a blue glass flower, a porcelain vase, a rubber Ganesh, a silver Buddha and the iron Buddha.  Each piece is made from an earth-derived material. Tibetan scholars often say that when you are making an image of the Buddha, you are in fact making the Buddha. "The Buddha," Shechet says, "is a reminder."

Process is the essence of Shechet's work.  Her "drawings" are hand made paper, the image is made up of blue and white paper pulp, and so is embedded and not applied.  Her hydrocal sculptures, often abstractions of the Buddha or of elephant-headed Ganesh, are made without an armature, solidifying quickly as she works, while the paint on their surfaces is paint skins: she lifts the skin that forms on the surface and drapes it over the sculpture.  The starting point for Shechet's work always involves movement:  that movement of making, the movement of images borrowed from a distant time and of those taken from a far geography.  Her choice of blue and white porcelain as a subject links East and West, as familiar to both cultural traditions. These projects for A/D take a parallel voyage.

To bring form out of the void is to create identities where there were none.  The artist...models form through what the body knows...It's that body analogue we begin with.
    --From Kay Larson's catalogue essay for John Berggruen Gallery, 1997

Art may always be about art, but the best is also about life and life seems to be about themes which take us in and out of ourselves, on travels far away and ultimately back home again. 
    --From Peter Nagy's catalogue essay for Elizabeth Harris Gallery, 1999