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Wednesday, November 21, 2001

Jo Legner - Hot House Gallery - Nov. 21, 2001 - 3 stars


Subtle kink meets collage in Legner's loosely lurid, bold, black-outlined Japanimation girl paper mosaics. Beautiful and delicately printed Japanese, Thai and English papers are chopped up (most in 2-inch blocks) and reassembled to give life to her large-scale, convincingly innocent (and one or two not so innocent) and, dare I say, cute, sexy cartoon girls. The fairy straddling a flower, the blue girl spread-eagled on the phone, the bunny-girl investigating carrots, the bare-breasted kitty-woman and the other girls on revue are all perfectly composed for their square format, as if they were individual animation cells. Hardly a parody, these pieces are wildly lively, with a fresh sense of freedom and fun in art, yet are created with care and accomplishment. Legner has a keen artistic vision to be able to piece together seemingly unlike paper colors and textures and then have the end results create the right balance of depth and space for her caricatured beauties. Through Dec. 31, 2001; 686-0895. - Mary Lee Pappas

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