COVID-19
Death is all around us, all the time, but in fall it is arguably at its most beautiful. To consider the watercolors of Linda Laino’s Memento Mori series in this season feels like getting a lesson in how to look at the world around us more appreciatively. Here (and there) are desiccated leaves, withered blooms, a brittle white wishbone, all tenderly painted on delicate rice paper. Multi-panel works are especially moving for how they observe not just one state but many on the journey between life and death, from prone sparrow to tiny bare vertebrae, from plump green fava bean pod to curled-up brown husk, from rich red leaf to papery yellow one. Here is life: present, ebbing, gone and not forgotten. Imagine Laino adding a few more images, following life as it edges toward total disappearance, composting to dirt and to dust. What would be left atop the creased and draped grounds on which her subjects once lay? Memories. (Planned for exhibition at Artspace in Richmond, VA, this summer and postponed indefinitely due to the pandemic.)
—Lori Waxman 2020-11-04 10:25 AM