By Karen Parr-Moody
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – Most people love art that, while beautiful, still evokes some emotion. This might be a pleased sigh evinced by Claude Monet’s water lily ponds or a sense of otherworldliness aroused by Maxfield Parrish’s dreamscapes.
Anne Bagby’s untitled collages in the exhibit “Layered Expressions” at the Customs House Museum contain emotion encased in lavish beauty. Her work is created through layers of pattern created in the mixed media of paint and found objects. Conscripted to shadow boxes, these patterns and textures are lovely confections. But what proves more moving is the emotive quality of the portraits painted within many of them.
In one collage a prince seems to hide behind corseted stings, his face revealing what some others do: A sense of removal, as though he is floating out there somewhere, hiding a secret. The nature of the shadow box encasement renders these figures dreamier; they are, after all, protected by decorative handiwork and the deep confines of a frame. But there is more.
Cheery flowers and a dreamy lady comprise one of Anne Bagby’s collages in the show “Anne Bagby: Layered Expressions.”
In another collage featuring two harlequins, the viewer registers tragedy instead of a carnival clown’s cheery, red grin. In yet another collage, the delicate line work of tulips catches the viewer’s eye, but in a corner – as though hidden in a treasure box – there is a woman’s calm face, her eyes peacefully closed.
In her artist’s statement Bagby says, “My paintings are about the relationship we have with the world and with ourselves and with whom we want the world to think we are.”
Bagby also calls her work “deliberately formal and beautiful.” Thankfully, because of the emotions she explores through her portraiture, there is much more.
“Anne Bagby: Layered Expressions” is on view at the Customs House Museum at 200 S. Second Street through July 6. For more information on the show contact Terri Jordan, Exhibits Curator, at 931-648-5780 or terri@customshousemuseum.org.
The emotive portraits found within Anne Bagby’s decorative shadow boxes are like hidden treasures amid the gilt and paper.
Karen Parr-Moody began a career as a New York journalist, working as a fashion reporter for Women’s Wear Daily, a beauty editor for Young Miss and a beauty and fashion writer for both In Style and People magazines. Regionally, she has been a writer at The Leaf-Chronicle newspaper and currently writes about arts and culture for Nashville Arts magazine each month.