ROMANCE OF THE ROSE: A sculpture by Tammy Graham

First impression:
A flower made of stone; something delicate, alive and desirous of change
which against its nature has been frozen in time, and weighed down upon
it’s self; it’s true content denied by the form to which it has yielded.
I remembered it as being chunky, primarily a piece of rock with just
enough of a hint of flower to it to make me think flower more than rock.
It left me with a dark feeling that even its creamy whiteness could not
overcome.

A cage of thorny vines surrounding the flower adding further oppression
to an already painfully oppressive situation; the vines and thorns there
to deny the flower any possible escape short of death – (but isn’t it
dead already?) – and creating an environment so void of hope that even
death disguised as death would still be trapped.
Dripping over this sad situation is a thick coating of sweet, sticky
looking resin. This puzzled me all weekend. Was it honey to take away the
bitterness? I tried to visualize the work without the resin. It would
lose much of its unity and would become perhaps too raw to be
approachable. I tried to see the resin as something more than just a
formal element there to unify the work and pretty it up, but short of
connecting it to something Linda Blair might have spewed out in the
Exorcist, I could not reconcile it to the rest of my feelings for the
work. Having verged on insult, let me go on to say I think the work is
stunningly beautiful, and painfully painful, sensitive, profound and
charged. I thought, if it were my work, I would not have included the
resin, but I see a great sensitivity to the use of the visual materials
in your works and expression, and I think perhaps the resin is a form I
am just not understanding. Therefore, any fault I find with the resin I
should be prepared to take responsibility for.
Next first impression:
The flower is far more delicate and fragile and alive and changing than I
had remembered! It is not rock-like at all. In fact it denies rock. As
for alive and changing, before my fresh eyes it evolved from a stone
flower, to a flower; then to an oyster mushroom coated in garlic and
olive oil, warmed and waiting to be devoured; and finally it evolved into
the sensuous fold upon fold of a woman’s labia, drenched in – well, not
in garlic and olive oil!
That menacing, thorny wrapper now clearly is there to keep the viewer
out. Eyes only, and only if the lights are on. Such a willful barrier
cannot be penetrated without suffering pain. But, that sticky, gooey,
honey-like resin drenching and coating everything draws us in as bees to
a flower. This work is the kind of strong statement men fear and rage at,
(note my first interpretation). Thank goodness for the artistic soul.

Tammy, this is a stunning work. The use of materials is strong and
sensitive. The content is multi leveled – seductive, emotive, ponderous.
With refection, I can read further narratives into the work, but they all
become variations on a theme already presented