Leslie Fry at Mira Mar Gallery, Sarasota, Florida
Sculpture Magazine, November 2003 (Vol. 22, No. 9)

Leslie Fry’s recent explorations of woman/nature analogies play with the viewer’s sense of scale and with fashion. Her Moss Coat, a stunning, sphagnum moss covered work stands like an ancient Chinese dignitary, quietly commanding its space, though in fact it is only forty inches tall. The coat takes on a life of its own with its greenish moss covering, which might suggest a sprouting object or on the other hand simply reflect an ancient green patina on some archaic vestment. Its imposing presence – in elegance not size - at the entrance to the exhibition sets a tone for the entire show, though many of the works suggest a quirky tongue-in-cheek humor.

Unexpected scale works for Fry. Her Hermaphrodites, fruit-and-nut concocted assemblages, surprises us with their small, handheld quality. Corncob-like painted plaster bodies stand on cantaloupes with nut or squash breasts and squash derrières, and suggest sexy miniature hermaphrodites from a veiled kingdom. Visions of a harem are implied by the dress; Fry’s flirtation with form offers a humorous encounter.

Ziggurat Dress, like Moss Coat, could be monumental, but it is not. Unlike the enormous ziggurat it implies, the porous figure rising from its black, stepped base stands only three feet tall, like a monument in an ancient Ur landscape. Dramatic in its present format, this work calls for 10 feet more in height and a large public setting. Fry often works in public sculpture, which could be her eventual intention for this piece. Or she might simply be fascinated with unusual scale.

Fry’s architectural fantasies like Nut Towers, of simulated, painted plaster pecans, peanuts, pistachios, and walnuts with Brussels sprout roof tiles and cabbage leaf doors and windows rise up three floors for about thirty inches. These towers could possibly be from an Italian cityscape. Temple resembles a Greek pediment - one running wild with asparagus, a pumpkin dome, corncob post and lintel, cabbage leaf door, and beet leaf siding. While whimsical, like many of the other works in the show, it avoids cuteness. Small, flat plaques of sea life on cast paper reflect the artist’s concerns with the environment and whimsy, which both pervade the show.

Beautifully installed, the sculptures interact with black and white photographs by Burk Uzzle. The Hermaphrodites, for instance, stand next to Uzzle’s photograph of wrapped human figures in a landscape. Another of Uzzle’s photographs, “Oh Holy Tire,” hangs behind Fry’s small bronze sculptures of squash, a ball of twine, and other quirky objects that seem somehow elevated to something precious by the use of bronze as a medium. Uzzle’s photographs, set individually in different sculpted frames instead of the ubiquitous maple modern, become sculptured works themselves. Throughout the exhibition this interplay of object with photograph offers a sophisticated, and at the same time, whimsical, experience.

Ann Albritton