| Appealing to the senses and evoking emotional states, wonder is the principal effect that the objects that I make incite. My work consists of three interrelated ventures: floral relief carvings in wax, floral paper cut-outs and drawings of exotic fowl. The exotic fowl series, in its earliest stages, was exclusively of cocks and cockerels, but has grown to include pheasants and pigeons that possess similar characteristics to those I found of interest in the roosters before them. The birds selected are all males in their mating prime and each of them displays a variety of decorative embellishments used to demonstrate their sexual prowess. |  |
Jolynn Krystosek
“Wonder is defined as a constriction and suspension of the heart caused by amazement at the sensible appearance of something so portentous, great and unusual, that the heart suffers a systole. Hence wonder is something like fear in its effect on the heart.”
—Albertus Magnus, Commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle
Appealing to the senses and evoking emotional states, wonder is the principal effect that the objects that I make incite. My work consists of three interrelated ventures: floral relief carvings in wax, floral paper cut-outs and drawings of exotic fowl. The exotic fowl series, in its earliest stages, was exclusively of cocks and cockerels, but has grown to include pheasants and pigeons that possess similar characteristics to those I found of interest in the roosters before them. The birds selected are all males in their mating prime and each of them displays a variety of decorative embellishments used to demonstrate their sexual prowess. I only choose to depict fowl types that draw attention to themselves through some seductive or exaggerated bodily adornment. The cock, for instance, has always been associated with the nature of masculine sexuality.
Taking into account this long historical tradition, the drawings play with this characterization. Portraying the birds as characters of seduction, I provide them with readable traits that relate to the birds’ wills of attraction or disgust. To ensure this reaction, certain traits are accentuated while others are subdued, as in the cropping of the portraits in which only the decorative, grotesque combs and tufted headdresses of the birds are featured.
The wax relief carvings and paper cut-outs have an unsettling fragility. The physical vulnerability of the media of wax and paper heightens the relationship between the work and the viewer’s own corporeality, as does their floral theme of seduction. The historical conception of flora as having heavily laden sexual implications is played out with the help of the viewer’s enchantment by the seemingly physical impossibility of the work. In addition, in my work I often reference Dutch baroque still life painters, particularly the flower bouquets of Rachel Ruysch. These paintings capture the essence of decay with great opulence and also glorify the moment at which decomposition begins; the object’s most lush moment is actually the beginning of its end.
My cut-outs’ overgrown and entangled density is achieved through a process of layering as well as of exacting the specificity of botanical form. The act of carving, too, shares this overlap of harshness and beauty. Starting with a pristine surface from which I carve out forms through dramatic incisions, I cut into the object with the intention of pushing the material to the limits of its sustainability. The encounter leaves two marks upon the object: physical ephemerality and the trace of my extreme acts upon its surface.
