Animal works both artistic, educational

Published: August 17, 2007

There is a nice interaction between nearly scientific accuracy and the emotional response of the artist in the "Passionate Menagerie,” a show of paintings, drawings and prints by Debby Cotter Kaspari at JRB Art at the Elms gallery.

Born in California and the wife of a tropical ecologist who teaches at the University of Oklahoma, Kaspari has sketched flora and fauna in habitats ranging from her home in Norman to the rain forests of Australia, Costa Rica and Panama.

Fanciful and sometimes anthropomorphic titles help Kaspari emphasize the human element and sense of whimsy often found in her work, along with scientific observation and educational content.

A reddish-brown spider monkey, using its long arms and tail to navigate effortlessly through the upper branches of a wild nutmeg tree, becomes "Bacchus in Panama” in a deft pastel and graphite sketch, to name a case in point.

Delightful, too, are Kaspari's pastel-graphite sketches of an Australian shepherd striking a pose for a dog show judge and of a friend's well-fed red mare, hoping to get a sugar handout in a flower garden.

But it is Kaspari's depictions of birds and their habitats that supplies the strongest single element in the exhibit.

A red throated ant-tanager stands out vividly, almost jewel-like, on a branch in a Panama forest, while a gray-headed tanager is much harder to find in a pastel-graphite drawing by Kaspari called "Let's Get Lost.”

In Kaspari's "Watch What Happens,” a harpy eagle, looking owlishly over its shoulder, seems to view us as potential prey, like one of the bird-women from ancient Greek mythology after which it was named.

"The forces of nature fascinate me, whether it is the golden flash in the eye of an ornate hawk-eagle seeking prey, the woeful expression of a golden retriever or the twisting branches of an ancient tree overgrown with vines,” Kaspari said.

Also on view at JRB is an exhibit of metal sculptural architectural furnishings, many of which reveal the playful, fanciful side of their creator, Oklahoma City architect Stan Carroll.

These range from a white steel lounge chair whose seat is scooped out of a cube and a white steel reinterpretation of a classic Chippendale four-poster bed by Carroll to a giant steel version of a child's tricycle called "All Work and No Play.”

Both Carroll's show of architectural furnishings, which he describes as "mega industrial stuff,” and Kaspari's exhibit of nature studies are recommended viewing during their run through Aug. 31.

— John Brandenburg

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