Beauty bleeds through the macabre at new Manichaus show

Phyllis Evans’ colorful and enigmatic encaustic paintings based on antique medical engravings are captivating. These mixed media paintings initially seduce with a whimsical demeanor, and then strike with a dark undercurrent. Improbable medical procedures send viewers’ imaginations off into even more improbable scenarios. Evans’ solo exhibit, “Experimental Procedures,” is currently on display at ManicHaus Art Space.

Evans pulled from 19th century medical illustrations as a point of departure. Scanning these images into her computer, Evans ran with her imagination. The Surrealists, whose art defied rationality by combining seemingly incongruous elements, inspired her process. However, she says that the process of working with digital media disallows a truly automatic or subconscious approach to her work.

“I try to be as instinctive as I can,” stated Evans,  “and rely as much as possible on my subconscious whims when making my initial choices." Her images combine illustrations with the rich textural effects of wax and oil paint.

Conscious agendas do slip in. A number of the paintings show strong affinities for the work of Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo.

Kahlo also referenced medical texts in her paintings, seeking to come to terms with her physical condition and the medical treatments she endured. Like Kahlo, Evans has frequently combined mechanical and organic forms, emphasizing the most unpleasant aspects of both.

Replacement Parts, oil, encaustic wax, and ink jet print, demonstrates this reference. A bandaged female figure, in the pose of a Roman statuette, is placed in front of a mysterious plant/green feathers. Floating around her are prosthetic devices and human organs. They are equally possible.

"Echoing Kahlo’s distrust of the machine,” explained Evans, “my own strange hybrids suggest to the viewer something ominous, and draw upon our collective anxieties in a world where potential biological catastrophes loom large, where good science is halted by irrationality, and where bad science is encouraged by the market place in our current political climate in which ethics go largely ignored."

An Experimental Procedure illustrates a potential biological catastrophe. A motionless figure lies on an examining table. She seems trapped under a casing-like cloth; her feet are wrapped together. Piercing one side of her motionless body and escaping out the other is an aggressive, oversized, intestine. It has evolved a life of its own and is rising undeterred into the space above the helpless woman.

A tension exists in these paintings that draws the viewer in closer. Evans admitted that many of her works suggest stories, either happening or about to happen.  Some of them have frightening connotations. The painting, Strange Irrigation, is an image emanating this uneasiness. Is it our worst hospital visit nightmare?

“I have no explanation for my idiosyncratic fascination with the human body, pain, illness, and medical procedures,” summarized Evans, “other than the Freudian assumption that I must be suppressing a forgotten psychological trauma from my childhood.”

Experimental Procedures

A Solo Exhibit by Phyllis Evans
Where: ManicHaus Art Space,1301-B, N. Main Street, McAllen
When: July 10-24. Hours are: Tuesday - Saturday, 1 to 6pm.
Contact: 956-207-0940.

Nancy Moyer, PhD, is the art critic for Festiva. She may be reached at nmoyer@rgv.rr.com