Charlotta Westergren at Dee/Glasoe

Charlotta Westergren's debut exhibition was strangely endearing. This Brooklyn-based artist from Sweden is interested in fairy tales and the world of science; in her work, goofiness and meticulous execution coexist. Titled "Twinkle Twinkle," her show comprised a hyperrealistic sculpture executed on a grand scale, a mural of shimmering paillettes and five acrylic-on-lame paintings, each measuring 40 inches square.

Her themes involve marvelous works of nature and how these feed our fantasies. Viewers were struck by Nocturne (mixed mediums, 108 inches high 2002), a colossal latex mushroom with a bright red resin-coated cap. The mushroom's shaft had a vertical cleft that could be stretched open, affording access to a small, pitch-black cylindrical space with fiber-optic stars twinkling in the seemingly limitless sky above. Darkness made way for light as one passed once more through the slit and faced the opposite wall, where, in Dawning (2002), thousands of round blue and white translucent paillettes were loosely affixed to the ends of pins; they formed a pattern that evoked clouds drifting through the sky. Ventilation kept the disks moving so that the surface glistened like shot silk or mother-of-pearl.

In several pictures, Westergren further explored the iconography of mushrooms. In Coral Spring Mycena (2002), she presents a cross section of soil, covered by large brown leaves that are offset by a silver lame sky. Five tall, slender mushrooms with yellow stems and glowing orange caps reach through the decaying foliage toward the sky as ants burrow underground.

In Clover and Smultron Stalled (Among the Wild Strawberries), both 2001, are magnificent pictures in which Westergren's precision in rendering the delicacy of plant life is akin to Durer's. In Smultron she evokes the fairy-filled world of Victorian artist Richard Dadd. The top two-thirds of the composition is studded with rhinestones, suggesting stars sparkling in the metallic blue sky. Wild strawberry plants with roots fully exposed rise magically from the bottom of the canvas. A fairy hovers in midair, smelling a strawberry, as two large spiders crawl nearby. The play of light both through and across foliage is breathtaking. Westergren's technical wizardry and talent in exploring linked themes through different mediums are cause for wonder.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group