Hollis Sigler: Expect the Unexpected (Part 02)

Highlighted by occasional pink clouds, the floating bed appears to be an hospitable place to recline. “To Kiss the Spirits: Now This is What it is Like,” from 1993, makes use of the same concept of ascension as “The Earth Grows Languid.” The earlier painting, though, substitutes a parade of women for floating furniture. As the procession climbs higher up the circular staircase, individuals sprout wings and take flight to reach whatever might await them in the ether. Either painting might count as a mediation on the impermanence of life. Sigler’s concerted effort to relate movement – and here it’s upwards – aptly displays the difference between her pre and post diagnosis work. Rapidity and uncertainty characterize these later works when examined alongside her earlier, comparatively empty canvases.

Solidifying her style as a painter, Sigler created a unique and identifiable body of work. Her most recognized pieces aren’t necessarily the few diorama-like constructions or even the single installation that takes up so much floor space at the Chicago Cultural Center. Examining some of the oddities within her catalog, a persistence of topical vision remains intact.

Perpetually positive despite her troublesome medical condition, Sigler’s “She Always Had Hope” (1995), continues her focus on women’s health. In this particular work, which is neither a painting nor a small scale construction, Sigler utilizes a simple cut out method, layering two pieces of paper. The outer layer, a drab purple color, is bordered by a series of jagged, triangular shapes that serve to frame the ramshackle room depicted here.

Due to the underlying, burnt orange peeking through, the entire room seems to be glowing, but surrounded by darkness lent by the top layer. The simplicity of “She Always Had Hope” becomes jeopardized by the title being past tense. It’s mirrored in the room’s emptiness, boarded up window and door. Inescapable, even after considering the possibility that wrenching plywood from the building’s openings would grant access to the outside world, a shovel and a hole in the ground explain that whoever was trapped has now been freed.

Perceiving the open space in the lower, left hand corner of the piece as an auspicious spot, it should be realized that while most of Sigler’s work focuses on upward motion or a sort of chaos as reveled through any number of paintings that exhibit furniture in various states of disarray, the hole here leads one downward. Considering the fact that Sigler was battling cancer, the title of this piece being past tense and finally that amongst the work exhibited in this show, its materials are unique, the mostly positive artist might still have suffered moments of doubt. Regardless of whether or not “She Always Had Hope” attempts to explain escape from sickness into death, the approach Sigler took to different materials still yielded a final product that easily jives with the remainder of her work.

Displaying such a breadth of work, but only showing pieces from a brief portion of her career, Expect the Unexpected serves to expound the virtues of an artist that was able to maintain a successful career even in the face of a debilitating illness. If Sigler’s work doesn’t force one to emote, her story certainly will.