Malia Jensen

Got on the old artsy and decided that I would check out some ceramic work.  I stumbled across Malia Jensen and she has some really interesting, really beautiful--and pretty funny in many cases--art works.

Purse
7" x 20" x 15"
polyurethane resin
2001

Young Bucks (more fucking dear art)
10.5" x 5" x 5.5"
bronze, walnut base
2010

Crystal Beaver
4" x 2.25" x 7.5" each
lead crystal
2010

Bedroll
10" x 16" x 14"
cast ceramic
2005

Perfect Circle
2" x 24" x 24"
cast ceramic
2012

I suppose I'll talk about the young buck sculpture because I think its funny and it reminds me of Sportman's Warehouse or Cabela's art.  There is sooo much art work out there  depicting is some species of cervid!  I don't know if that was the joke, but that's what got me.  The deer are also engaging in some odd animal behavior that does actually happen when young deer are both excited and confused.  I would love to see a painting of such a scene hanging in a Cabela's store (the look on hunter's faces...priceless).

The sculpture is relatively small (could be displayed on a table or shelf in one's home) the materials are cast bronze and a wood block that is acting as a base for two bronze deer.  The subject of the piece are male deer as seen by the number of points on their antlers, and they are also in velvet.  One of the male deer has mounted the other and is attempting (in vain) to mate.  The deer figures are representational, but not necessarily naturalistic.  They appear to be stylized by the artist.  Its actually hard to see this in the horrible picture I pulled from Jensen's website.  The wood block has been cut and smoothed on five of the six sides.  The top side with the deer attached has been left ruff and untouched.  

Malia Jensen grew up in Oregon and now resides in Brooklyn.  Her career as a "recognized" (I had to put that in quotes because even I don't know what that means exactly) artist began on the early 1990's.  She is a sculptor primarily  but has also a series of New Yorker style cartoons.  She works in tradition materials such as ceramics and bronze, but has also worked in with rubber fabric which she pulled over deer and elk taxidermy forms, or silk fabrics that she sewed around young trees.  She is known for her work that is both comical, but slightly sad if you delve deeply into the meanings.  Her subjects are often times animals either domestic or wild.  It has been speculated that her rural roots in Oregon contributed to the heavy use of nature and fauna in her art.