|
In Mother and Child the heroine (AKA:the artist) moves from the glories of sex to the rewards of motherhood and a new kind of intimacy. Lazzari's self-portrait with her own toddler is painted in a monumental and solid manner, echoing the Old Master paintings of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuries. Whether painting a modern mother and child or an allegorical person, as in the upbeat Personification of Time, Lazzari's female protagonists are full-figured fertility figures bathed in a golden, transformational light, and touched by grace. In these works, weight is used as a metaphor. These women are substantial. They're not lightweights--easily moved around. They are heavyweights--people to be reckoned with.
In the mid- to late-nineties, Lazzari started a new series of water paintings. In Above and Below the Surface Lazzari portrays a young girl floating in water. She seems serenely supported by the silky, blue-green water. On the other side of the diptych, the young girl floats anxiously in an ominously red streaked body of water. On her face is a look of concern. The red and black streaks suggest both tar spills and blood. The surface of the water, which is gorgeously painted, is both seductive and dangerous. Lazzari, in the catalogue that accompanies this show, explains "The medium of water is a way to identify people and make them present, but in the water they are visually distorted, seemingly dissolved and weightless as if they are between life and death. In some of these paintings, they are my vision of heaven.". This is particularly true of the triptych entitled States of Matter: Grace. To the left is an androgynous figure, glowing white like an angel. This ambiguous figure looks to the right guiding the viewer to the central panel, where a child in an inner tube swims towards the outstretched hands of her mother. In the panel to the right, a happy, brightly lit man, presumably the father and husband, smiles contentedly. The water is dark as night, as mysterious as life itself. Lazzari couples a keen intelligence with dazzling sensuality to create a body of work which is personal, idiosyncratic, of its time and, paradoxically, timeless. |