Greg Cook & Kari Percival Review!

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(you can see this review in context at: http://art.newcity.com/2008/09/16/review-kari-percival-and-greg-cook/ or in this week’s print edition of NewCity)

RECOMMENDED

The work of Kari Percival and Greg Cook, both Boston-based artists, couldn’t be more different in terms of concept and form. Illustrator and puppet-maker Percival explores the earthy delights of the natural world in her brightly colored woodcuts. “Free Swim,” which details a beaver swimming on its side, reminds us of animals’ symbiotic relationship with the out-of-doors. Percival’s forest-greens pop with lush fecundity, urging us to become more in tune with our natural surroundings as well as our primal urgings, such as moving one’s body without restraint. The map of the world made out of felt, spread out in circles on the floor, and Chicago’s latitude—composed of dangling fuzzy yarn balls—strikes a less interesting note. Bits of stone on the map scrawled with messages like “hunger moon” and “deer loose antlers” may appear more comprehensible to the artist than audience. In sharp contrast to this romp with God’s creatures and planet Earth, Greg Cook paints a compelling picture of humankind’s “despicable” nature. Cook implements American history to shows us an interrelation between early American settlers’ obsession with “victory” and present day horrors of Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. Cook’s phallic missile made out of bed sheets alarmingly addresses a sexual lust for war, reinforced by a banner of pilgrims cutting down the “savages” (Native Americans) with machetes. A black-and-white cartoon strip depicting dehumanizing torture of prisoners at Gitmo drives home the message that our indigent treatment of others says much about our culture. Cook demonstrates that “defeating the enemy” is a disguise for genocide, greed and oppression. (Marla Seidell)

Through October 4 at Green Lantern Gallery, 1511 N. Milwaukee, second floor”