COVID-19
Here is a list of associations drawn from tiny watercolor-gouache-acrylic studies, small collages, and large monoprints by Laura Berman: geologic strata, tulip petals, a hand curled inward, a body tucked inside itself, tree rings, succulents in a bowl, feline eyes, paw prints, butterfly wings, faceted gems, and bird eggs. Briefly shown as FUSE, a solo exhibition in the Drawing Room at Weinberger Fine Art in Kansas City, MO, which has since closed in the wake of the pandemic, the work is unabashedly full of awe for the things big and little of the natural world. It’s also all square, lending the regularity of scientific illustration to Berman’s project, a sense present in those pictures that seem to contain multiple views of an object under scrutiny: a sedimentary rock seen from above and the side, perhaps even sliced in half. Unscientifically, but definitely in keeping with the aesthetics of wonder, nearly everything is rainbow-hued. Taken all together, the three dozen gems of FUSE risk canceling one another out in a flood of gloriousness: even rainbows would become ordinary if seen every day.
—Lori Waxman 2020-07-09 2:46 PM