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Fitzpatrick,
who has lived in Oak Park for almost 9 years, shares a
similar philosophy--even though her stream-of-conscienceness
"paperscapes" are worlds apart from Steele's
narrative prints. She noted that one of her greatest
challenges has been resisting the temptation to make her art
pretty. That's not to say her work is disturbing.
-"I'm
always looking for ways to roughen it up a bit."
admitted Fitzpatrick. "I have this horror about getting
cute. That doesn't mean I take the beauty out of a piece. I
just find works that are very sugary-sweet no different from
angst-ridden, horrific ones. They're like sound-bites. Both
extremes simply pander to our emotions. My aim is to produce
art that's thoughtful. You see or feel something different
every time you look at it.
-One group of
etchings adds severe, deliberate angles and muscular thighs
to the tulle skirts of degas-inspired dancers, who vie for
attention with their busy floral backgrounds. Other works
blend figures of women with equally busy fabric furniture.
-Throughout
Fitzpatrick's art, strength and fragility are at odds. This
idea is best reflected in her mastery of Japanese
papermaking, which she studied in shibakawa Machi, Japan. It
requires the backbreaking beating of bark to form the pulp,
which is eventually dyed and poured into molds that help
shape delicate looking, yet indestructible, paper canvases.
-Her latest
paper project, "The Krakow Series," displays
fortitude, mystery and hope through the recurring image of
arches. They are at once beautiful and brooding, with
suggestions of greenish-tinged patinas, goldleaf and
midnight blues that draws us into the rich spiritual pasts
of this reborn Polish city.
-Often
inspired by her environment, Fitzpatrick visited Krakow last
summer with her husband and two children. Upon returning,
she could not get the images of arches and religious fervor
out of her mind.
-"Krakow
is like Paris without the Parisians, " laughed the
Boston-born artist. "It's so sophisticated and the
people are civilized and genuinely religious. The arches
reminded me of the faded beauty of a place being brought
back to life. Some of these shapes lead into the darkness of
a church or to a world beyond the darkness.
-"In the
Krakow series, I worked to evoke that tension by pitting
light against dark, coaxing monumental shapes out of the
flat and fragile paper. Our past is receding into the
fibers, but it's always there if you look for it." |
