You say youre brokenhearted? Actually, it feels like someone shoved their arms down your throat, clutched your heart, and wrung it out like a dishrag. You gagged repeatedly until you barfed out your soul. Then the poor thing was slowly torched on a spit. Now all thats left is a charred, crumpled creature. If you feel this way, youll find company at Eric Firestone Gallery, which is showing hauntingly beautiful papier-mâché sculptures by Tucsons Michael Cajero.
Rendered with shreds of trashed paper that look like theyre covered with black mold, the figures in Michael Cajero: We Need to Dream All This Again cower and crawl all over the floor, walls, and ceiling. A decrepit, hideous woman with jagged, thick locks of hair smokes a cigarette while hunched over her protruding potbelly. A naked man writhes and twists as if his body is rotting from the inside out. A puny, emaciated dog trembles in the corner. The works are so poignant and understanding, theyll reach out and touch your soul (or whats left of it, anyway).
Feb. 7-March 15, 2008