(ABOVE) ELIZABETH NEEL, THE LOSERS, 2007, OIL ON CANVAS.
When I was three years old, a fox raided the chicken coop on my parent’s farm. The site of the massacre was strewn with evidence of its swift violence. One particular bird had only been partially consumed – almost perfectly bisected in such a way that it’s entire reproductive system was revealed. I could see a series of stages beginning with a yolk and ending with a perfect, shelled egg within that body – fixed at the moment of death in pristine order. This visual experience represented a turning point in my relationship to the world. I now see it as my first clear instantiation that life, and nature underneath it, is a baroque, mysterious thing that hangs precariously on a framework of elegant reason.
-Elizabeth Neel

I HAVE A SOFT SPOT FOR ABSTRACTION. SUBSTRACTION, FEATURING WORK BY ELZABTH NEEL AND OTHERS, ON NOW AT DEITCH PROJECTS.