Out of Water

Judy Fox
Out of Water
October 27 - December 15, 2012
Opening Reception: Saturday, Oct. 27, 6-8pm

P.P.O.W is pleased to announce Out of Water, our sixth solo exhibition of figurative sculpture by Judy Fox. Well known for her exquisitely rendered human figures, including children that are at once iconic, psychological and subversive, Fox continues to explore mythological references that are used to reflect upon contemporary sociological issues. In her latest installations, virtuoso use of form extends to the surreal, with visual puns used to provoke conflicted emotional reactions.

The centerpiece of this new installation is a comely standing life-size figure of a Mermaid. Legs pressed together as if fused into a tailfin, hands paddling downward, she looks dreamily over her entourage. A set of Worms spread out before her like the writhing sea horses that pull the chariot of a Greek sea goddess. They are curvy and sensual --- some profiles resemble parts of naked human bodies.

If the worms embody physicality itself, the Cephalopods in the room are all head. They look on, analytical and judgmental. Amusingly, they all seem to assume the characters of human prototypes --- a wise old man, a frilly girl, a dowager, a butler. Her provocative imagery swirls with layers of mythology, science and humor.

Out of Water once again puts iconic imagery in service of an exploration of human imperatives. Like the sea monsters that prowled the edges of the once flat earth, the Cephalopods and Worms threaten our boundaries. Primitive, alien, yet connected to our own predatory minds and soft flesh, they both attract and repel. They are a premonition of the human animal yet to evolve, and they remind us that the primordial persists within us. It is a fearful affinity that is allegorized in the earliest myths of creation and procreation, and is the heart of evolution. 

Judy Fox was born in 1957 in New Jersey and now lives and works in New York City. She studied sculpture at Yale University and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and received a Masters in Art History and Conservation from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. She has participated in numerous private and public exhibitions in the United States and Europe. She has received many awards, including NEA grants, "Anonymous Was a Woman" and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is a fellow of both the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts.