Still Lives and Skulls
Metro Pictures | New York
Jan. 20 - Mar. 12, 1998
A face is a near sacred thing. Christians adore the vera icon, the perfectly flat and symmetrical image of Jesus’ face miraculously imprinted upon a cloth after Veronica wiped Christ’s brow as He ascended Golgotha, the Mount of the Skull. The face-skull opposition is one that interests Oursler (Mutation Skull, 1998; Hole, 1998), who comes from a religious background, and whose embrace of themes of dysfunction and countercultural subject matter may be seen as a response to his conservative roots. God has made us in His likeness.