Alice Leora Briggs

Showing in "What I See", July 2-31, 2010

By combing images made by past artists, drawings made of spaces and objects she encounters, diagrams and photographs from newspapers and magazines, Alice Leora Briggs attempts to depict what the world looks like to her. With reverence and honesty, she seeks to portray the world with its imperfections. The artist is acutely aware of her temporary presence in the world; morbidity and mortality are the major themes in her work. Briggs sees herself continuing the lineage of artists, who for many centuries in Europe, created images of the darker side of the human experience including martyrdom, suffering, disease, death and disaster. The use of allegory, historical references and Shakespearean tragedy visually connect her to this tradition.

The artist does not distinguish between the disastrous effects of politics and nature. In Brigg’s opinion nature and culture are not so easily divided, and she does not seek to put forth a political agenda, she only expresses what she sees.

To represent this world, Briggs uses a technique of painting and drawing developed in the 18th century called sgraffito. Today the term refers to a method of scratching lines upon a plaster surface - the incisions in an upper coat reveal a lower stratum of contrasting color. Briggs combines her sgraffito drawing of India ink over kaolin clay incised with x-acto knife, with acrylic. This technique allows her to express her “manic duty” to make marks on the surface. Each image is an accumulation of thousands of marks which chart the way her eyes move over objects and through space. These marks together reveal what the world looks like to her.

• Related Links: Contemporary Figurative Works

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    Spit, 2007
    Sgraffito drawing on panel.
    Diptych, 25 x 29 inches.
    $3800

    Spit includes a study of a section of the central panel of Martyrdom of St. Erasmus by Dieric Bouts. Below is a passage from Dreamland that happens to coincide with the drawing...and I do mean coincide...with few exceptions I simply made drawings...I would look for some relationship to the text after the work was completed. That’s what makes Dreamland kind of extraordinary....the imagery that I see 24/7 on the back side of my brain is really that close to what Bowden writes about. This made the hair on the back of my neck stand up more than once. From Dreamland: The workers of the death house would meet at Los Arcos to eat and drink and plan their jobs, tasks described as carne asadas,roughly meaning grilled meat or barbeques. It is a nice place to resolve the humdrum details of kidnapping, torture, murder and burial.

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    Eden, 2008
    Sgraffito drawing on panel.
    Diptych, 12 x 30 inches.
    $3200

    Eden...is a little tougher to pin down. I looked at a lot of early engineering drawings, but was not very faithful to any of them... in part, this work is a portrait of the landed gentry enjoying the labors of the poor. The 17th century-ish guy who turns to face his accusers (well, viewers) is based on copies many times removed of a self portrait of painter, Philippe de Champaigne . I thought it required yet another copy....thus, it is an artist who stares back at the viewer...a stand-in for yours truly. The young woman munching on fruit is my daughter. She came to visit me when I lived at the Border Art Residency near Juarez.

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    Camp, 2008
    Sgraffito drawing on panel.
    Diptych, 12 x 30 inches.
    $3200

    On 4 different occasions in 2008 I visited an outpost for the Minutemen, a now defunct civilian group of self-styled border patrol agents who did not have any legal authority, but who made it their business to report to the actual Border Patrol anything they considered unseemly. They had conventions in Phoenix hotels on occasion, but for the most part sat around on lawn chairs with beer and binoculars next to their RVs parked in Southern AZ. To me it appeared that their idea of a good time was to play soldier. This organization attracted the same sort of people who do civil war re-enactments. Despite their bad reputation among liberals I found them to be kind of ridiculous, but pretty harmless. They have never fired on an illegal for example. This drawing includes their outpost on King Anvil Ranch on the border of the Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge. This image offers basic demographics of the organization….young men eager for action and older men who are more circumspect.

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    Ejecutado, 2009
    Sgraffito drawing on panel.
    15 x 24 inches.
    $3200

    The next day, the Sabbath, Lalo meets with Fernando at a Starbucks in an El Paso mall. For about half an hour, they talk about moving the marijuana to New York. Others are present and everything looks like a team effort. The following Monday, Lalo explains the set up to Santillan who remarks that “one would have to be out of the equation,” meaning murdered. Tuesday, August 5th, Lalo gets another call at nine a.m. to come to Juarez. He complies but once he arrives at the meeting he turns on his cell phone and begins to broadcast what is said. This secret action is never really explained but in the world of El Paso/Juarez where DEA, the FBI, ICE, and undoubtedly the CIA listen in to all phone calls, it means there is no telling who might hear. Santillan explains that they were going to kill Fernando, his childhood friend, and the Lalo was to go to a house with two state policemen to prepare for the murder. First, he and Santillan hit a pharmacy and buy some hydrogen peroxide and gauze for Fernando’s mouth—tools for inducing unconsciousness.

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    Exodus, 2008
    Sgraffito drawing on panel.
    21 x 17 inches.
    $2650

    The railroad trestle depicted in Exodus runs along the border between Ciudad Juárez and El Paso. It is near an abandoned cement factory where I wandered for the better part of a day. The lime used to make cement is a prized ingredient for shallow graves. It is termed a ‘dose of milk’. Corpses are covered in lime to hasten decomposition. Juarez is basically a graveyard. I know of one sicario (professional killer) who has personally buried over 200 people in clandestine graves. This sicario is one of hundreds… when he was in the life….he did not even know who he was working for. The organization within Mexican gangs and cartels resembles the cell structure that is more often associated with Muslim extremists.

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    Rope, 2007
    Sgraffito drawing on panel.
    12 x 15 inches.
    $1600

    Some of the more “professional” work in Juárez is pretty low tech… in the interest of keeping it all quiet. They get the job done with rope, electrical cord, duct tape, a garbage bag over the head, and a tap or two with a shovel, if necessary. This was the case for the murders that were committed in a Juárez death house on Parsioneros, a condo in a relatively nice neighborhood where 12 people were tortured, murdered and buried in the back yard.

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    Bow, 2007
    Sgraffito drawing on panel.
    12 x 15 inches.
    $1600

    This drawing is one of a number of uneasy constellations. I often succumb to my love for the canons and history of western painting and drawing, as much as to my own experiences along the U.S.-Mexico border. But ultimately, the realities of the life that I have come to know along the border are the glue that binds these works of art.

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    The Rat, 2009
    Sgraffito drawing with acrylic on panel.
    11 x 9 inches.
    $1100

    This is the basic equation. The lure in the trap looks so inviting that the architecture of the trap disappears for a moment. In Juárez the cost of living is about 90% of the cost of living in El Paso. Yet the salary for a Juárez maquilladora worker is about 70 or 80 bucks a week. It’s not too difficult to figure out why Mexicans cross illegally into the US. Nor is it any trouble to fathom how someone might fall into the habit of selling drugs…and when each of these strategies fails…consuming drugs.

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    The Canary, 2009
    Sgraffito drawing with acrylic on panel.
    11 x 9 inches.
    $1100

    The Canary for example is an allegorical portrait (the singing carary) of a man who worked for both the DEA and ICE as well as the Juárez cartel. He tortured and murdered 12 people (possibly more) with the full knowledge of these US agencies. In fact he broadcast one of the murders to ICE on his cell phone. The victims were involved in petty crime...and in at least one case he killed an innocent man was murdered. Nonetheless Lalo continued to be employed by US government agencies. He was imprisoned for a time in the US. Extradition to MX was threatened, but he is now walking the streets in the US. Not sure where. He was released from a maximum security prison in upstate NY earlier this year. While he was behind bars he sang a great deal. I had contacted his attorney and was planning to go meet him in NY, but his whereabouts are no longer known. So that’s the story. Well, that and the fact that he is at the center of the story in the book, Dreamland: The Way Out of Juarez.

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    Monkeywrench, 2009
    Sgraffito drawing with acrylic on panel.
    11 x 9 inches.
    $1100

    Monkeywrench is an homage to Edward Abbey who is buried illegally in the Arizona desert, not far from the Mexican border. A friend of mine helped put him in the ground, so I know this is true. The words are a direct quote and an indication of his terrific sense of humor. Abbey was originally from Appalachia, this the quilt pattern. This particular pattern is called the monkeywrench.

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    Acribillato, 2009-10
    Sgraffito drawing on panel.
    11 x 9 inches.
    $1100

    Acribillato is the daily fare. Juárez is one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Two thousand seven hundred and fifty-four murders, for example, were documented in 2009. A May 2010 poll indicated that as many as 230,000 people have fled the city. Despite the collapsing population…as of yesterday, Tuesday, July 6, 2010, one thousand four hundred and forty four murders are reported in Juárez (of course this means there are more) for this year.

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    Ya ni en la paz de los sepulcros creo, 2010
    Sgraffito drawing with acrylic on panel.
    11 x 9 inches.
    $1100

    The basic meaning behind the literal translation (I don’t even believe in the peace of the tombs anymore) is “I trust no one…even the dead might betray me”. This is another dog that I met in Palomas, MX….. A community where my camera battery and an SD storage disc were whisked from the table by a waitress when I turned to speak to her coworker, who no doubt spoke to me to make this small theft possible. When I asked if by chance the waitress has ‘accidentally’ wiped my possessions from the table when she swabbed it with a rag, her face was impressively opaque. Even the dogs in Palomas seem more wary than those that live on the streets of Juárez.

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    O otro perro con ese hueso, 2010
    Sgraffito drawing with acrylic on panel.
    11 x 9 inches.
    SOLD

    It depends on the context, but the basic idea of the text is: I’m not a fool (naive), go tell that to someone else. OR PERHAPS: Don’t pee on my leg and tell me that it’s raining. This is one of several street dogs I met in Palomas, MX, just across the border from Columbus, NM. In some ways this little town is a small scale model of Juarez. SUVs with dark windows patrol the mostly unpaved streets and there are narco mansions. Some of the mansions are half finished and boarded up… architectural testimonials to the fact that someone in the trade made a mistake. Mistakes can’t really be rectified in this trade, so the individuals who planned to occupy these unfinished homes are either dead oir they managed to flee. For an outsider, Palomas is scarier than Juarez in many respects. It is more difficult to blend in since very few people are on the street.

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    Hear Much, Speak Little, 2009-10
    Sgraffito drawing on panel.
    11 x 9 inches.
    $1100

    Hear Much, Speak Little is a stamp created to honor Jaime Hervella. From Dreamland: The Way Out of Juarez here is Bowden’s description of Jaime: (He) is the man who once stood up. He called a meeting in Juárez one August about the disappeared, and within two years he headed an organization with 196 names of vanished souls. He barks out these facts with a commander’s assurance. He is the man. He is in charge. And he is legally blind. After two years, Hervella stopped taking names. He does not explain this fact. He says not a single case has ever been solved. He says he is now getting excellent help from the Mexican authorities. For safety, he hosts the organization in El Paso, in this windowless room of his business. I listen to the old man talk and talk. I think he tasted the flame and then retreated. I think he tried and I never tried. I think he is afraid. I think only a fool would not be afraid.

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    Butcher, 2010
    Sgraffito drawing on panel.
    25 x 19 inches.
    $3150

    This is a portrait of Chuck Bowden in the foreground.