NANCY FERRO – The Past Informs at Ro2Art

Another exciting summer Dallas Gallery Day is upon us. July 14th from noon to 6 PM several galleries around town will be open for the city to see some art on the walls. Maybe a few on the floor too. That is right, all participating galleries will have a t-shirt and other goodies for the first 15 visitors to each venue. The Brooklyn Brewery will be having an after party from 6-8. 23 galleries are participating this year, yet RO2 isn’t one of them and that happens to be the show I wanted to write about. Because I was taken by Nancy Ferro’s project room exhibition.

Nancy Ferro works in encaustic painting and some assemblage. Her encaustic technique is to apply thick layers of 8 parts beeswax/1 part resin mixture and scrapes out part to reveal her collage underneath. The collages become abstract and only hint to their original sources. The object she has focused on is the home. Not the cookie cutter homes of the suburbs, but rather the home in the city with a great deal of character and history. The very same homes that a few developers have their eyes on these days to plow over and make room for condos. The same homes with climbing rent or taxes rooting people out, thus making it cheaper for development. I believe Ferro sees the inherent problem of gentrification. The forgetting of the past and preserving the fun and funky homes. Her work seems to celebrate these old structures and hopefully inspires someone to preserve rather than tear them down.

Nancy Ferro has come full circle with her house forms. 30 years ago she did a series of prints using house forms as a theme. Now she has returned to the form in her painting/assemblage pieces. Her work in general reminds me of Robert Rauschenberg. In fact, he was known to have used encaustic in his work, just not in the same way as Ferro. Maybe comparing her work to Jasper Johns would be better, but even this falls short. I can feel it in my bones that Ferro is striking a familiar style, but it is hard to pin her work down. I think I am on the right track in thinking that her work does continue the conversation the Neo-Dadaist were making. Only she isn’t just reacting, but actively engaging her community with this work.

Some shows are an instant love fest for me, other shows I hate then grow to love, others are ones I hate and don’t write about, but this show was kind of a slow burn. I felt a spark for the work and I connected, but I wasn’t excited. Then I happened across the work again this month and I began to get interested. A conversation over the phone with the artist and I was fully into what Ferro was doing. I must say, this has been a good summer to warm up to her work. RO2 Gallery has extended her show through July 21st.
 
RO2 Gallery will likely have regular hours on the 14th. So go see Nancy Ferro’s show in the project room first and then make your way to the rest of the galleries for the Dallas Gallery Day.

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