Porcelain Works on Display at Bellevue Arts Museum
Sculptor Chris Antemann brings sexy back
By Jim Demetre February 9, 2016
This article originally appeared in the March 2016 issue of Seattle magazine.
While art in the 20th century expanded its scope through abstraction, minimalism and conceptualism, something was clearly lost in the process. It would only be a matter of time before the sensuality and underlying eroticism of traditional Western figurative art—which held sway from ancient Greece until the Victorian era—would come back with a vengeance.
Oregon-based sculptor Chris Antemann, whose work is now on display at the Bellevue Arts Museum, has taken up the cause of its restoration. While participating in the art studio program at Meissen, the historic German porcelain factory, in 2012, she created a 5-foot-long, sweetly debauched work titled “Forbidden Fruit.” A contemporary celebration of the 18th-century banqueting craze that uses the Garden of Eden as its metaphor, the work is populated with her own cheerfully erotic figures, who are surrounded by a provocative array of dessert, ornamentation and flowers.
Be prepared to indulge. Through 5/29. Times and prices vary. Bellevue Arts Museum, 510 Bellevue Way NE; 425.519.0770
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