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12 March 2005: Back to the show at the Durban Segnini Gallery in Miami. One of my favorite pieces in it was the one below, by Sheila Murphy:
It seems pretty simple, and in many respects is. Boxes with words in some of them. Nice choice of colors. Beyond that, though, note the greys framing "my orchids" (and consider the choice of orchids as the flowers in this poem) folowed by the downward plunge of nested boxes to a yellow one--a plunge that, for me, represents "suffering." Inwardness is strongly suggested. The orchids just about have to be code for "me." The rest of the text seems to me the outside world--it's outside the nested boxes, and in somewhat more cheerful colors, and the attitude is fully outside the rest of the picture. Indeed, it may be the cause of the rectangular prison the rest of the poem is in.
What really grabbed me, however, was the way the plaintive, yellow hopefulness of "won't you touch me?" drops from the narrative (into a rectangle lower than the other rectangles holding texts). The result is a wonderful psychological study, a genuine poem and an appealing illumage, all interacting. That is, the text is not labeling but fulfilling the design.
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