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Laurel Hausler's Debs and Feral Children at Morton Fine Art

September 21, 2010

Amy Morton and friends

deb on top, feral kid on bottom

After popping up episodically around town for the last year or so, Amy Morton, dba Morton Fine Art, found herself a spiffy new permanent spot at Florida and 18th Sts. NW. Laurel Hausler’s “Debutantes and Feral Children” (an early contender for the Best Title award) opened there Friday night. The paintings suggest that the differences between the refined debutante and the feral child are more superficial than might be imagined. Laurel formerly showed with me at the late lamented Nevin Kelly gallery and I’m delighted to say that she is as demented as ever – and I mean that in the best possible way.

a little of both

Laurel Hausler in middle

The girl can paint, and by that I mean that she uses the unique qualities of paint to achieve effects that can’t be obtained with other media. In the pictures that appeal the most to me, the image swims to the surface intermittently, shifting and becoming more or less visible as you move around the canvas. They are the feral ones, dark, scary and mysterious. This is certainly the effect that Laurel is after – she’s titled one of them “Feral Child Eating Squirrel” and in another you can see a row of disembodied and threatening teeth, for God’s sake. I love ‘em.

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