History, kitsch and entertainment

ARTWALK

CORNELIA RENZ HAS an absurdly brazen style of fusing the medieval with the immediate. In her first solo show in the United States, in the Goff + Rosenthal Gallery in New York's exciting Chelsea District, this Berlin-based kind-of-40 artist collapses art history, kitsch and entertainment onto one another in her rivetting ink works.

Renz's works are about the uber-strong, imposing female in the private domain. Or at least, they seek to be incognito, as a work with masquerading masks reminds us. Of all the paintings, the most arresting of all is one where a central female figure, basking in her Renaissance-plus proportions, is commanding sexual gratification.

As in many other works, this one throws back, metaphorically to the Power Puff Girls, the deceptively frivolous characters with magical abilities and a streak of something that's not all sweet. This is further layered as Renz brings in Hieronymus Bosch in her work.

The linkages with this 15th century painter lies in the bizarre, fiend-like spirit and in frenzied, crowded, action in many frames. In this work, there are hangers on. A woman in severe black holds a torn heart, and two young bloodied children clutch what could be red blood corpuscles. A backbone-like belt winds around them.

These coded images are all embedded against a background of woven textile. In a small flash of a glance, this becomes exhibitionism a la celebrity guaranteed an audience. Constantly tantalising, like popular advertising and images of excess on television, Renz has created the portrait of a sorceress.

It's neither the evil male gaze nor chick-lit. In the flavour of Fellini's City of Women, it explores power and how it can be wielded. The Lilliputian men, all servile and unquestioning, play the role of the terrified Mastroianni.

The technique Renz uses, we learn from the gallery's handout, is to pour pigment into empty felt pen shells, and working on acrylic sheets, one placed on top of the other. The acrylic sheets create a gleaming surface and a small lighted space between them, lending an optical aspect to the materials themselves.

The pigment is made into lines, thick and thin, creating surfaces and depth. If only un-self-consciously, Renz mimics woodcuts. To me, this conjures up an old technique, hand-me-down volumes of fairy tales and, by association, some sort of magical orb.

Adding to this are disproportionate animals "" rabbits the same size as men and giant blue butterflies looming large. Slowly, Renz turns the word upside down, interrogating given notions. Seeing her work is therefore also an act of suspended belief. This works well with the theme of overbearing women, an idea that is still both mocked and disregarded in the everyday world.

In her previous works, Renz painted Lolitaesque girls getting risque, acting out (whose?) fantasies. Much of those borrowed from pop and celebrity culture, oozing sexuality and naivete at the same time. It was the theatre of the absurd.

Moving, as she has now, to subverting political correctness, she continues to rely on such absurdity, the counter attribute to reason. But this is just a passageway. It allows you to be open to suggestions. In this moment of hypnosis, Renz encourages you to be aware of the realism even in the ludicrous.