Art Review: Lauren Frances Moore Evans At Hillyer Art Space

Lauren Frances Moore, MFA Candidate in Studio Art-Sculpture, presents "Wholeism: Parts and Holes" at Hillyer Art Space in Washington D.C.

by Michael O'Sullivan, The Washington Post

Revulsion and fascination are at war in the art of Lauren Frances Moore Evans, on view atHillyer Art Space. As the artist puts it, “I want my work to be kind of pretty, but still a little bit yucky.”

That succinct if bipolar summation deftly straddles the strange, sweet spot where much of Moore Evans’s sculpture lies. Made from such materials as hog intestines, animal hair, fake fingernails and wadded-up chewing gum, the work in “Wholeism: Parts and Holes” resembles, at times, teratomas — human tumors that sometimes contain hair, teeth, bones and eyeballs. It’s repellent stuff, to be sure, but also oddly — perhaps morbidly — compelling.

One work, “Dingle Dangle,” looks like something out of a serial killer’s abattoir. Hanging from a nail, two flesh-colored appendages of unknown — but strongly phallic — origin terminate, incongruously, in a fringe of dainty eyelashes. Another piece, “Scrunch,” looks like an amputated (and possibly diseased) human toe, packed with surgical dressing.

There’s a strongly sexual subtext here, with forms that call to mind nipples, belly buttons and body cavities. A series of surreal collages, made from fragments of magazine photos, features skin that has been cut into anatomical shapes that don’t exist in nature but are still just labial or globular enough to evoke giggles.

But Moore Evans isn’t interested in merely titillating (or disgusting). Her transfiguration of the body’s orifices and outcroppings serves a deeper purpose, she says, whose meaning derives not from its literal evocation of the flesh but from its metaphorical potential.

Her show is about filling holes, she acknowledges, just not the kind you think.

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