Maura Bendett's materially seductive plastic arts subscribe to what could be called a "post-nature" attitude of representing nature by means of wholly cultural or artificial imagery.

Maura Bendett's materially seductive plastic arts subscribe to what could be called a "post-nature" attitude of representing nature by means of wholly cultural or artificial imagery. Synthetic and reconstituted, this is nature consum and commodified for a contemporary life increasingly devoid of an authentic experience of the natural world.

Unapologetically decorative and crafty, these seven pieces(all 2005) intimate wall-hung, bejeweled baroque chandeliers. The curly black starburst-shaped wire armatures are bedecked with cartoonish appropriations from nature in a wide vocabulary of fanciful shapes and surfaces--whimsical mod flowers rimmed in spirals and swirls, colorful triangular thorns, floppy mushrooms, tiny chromatic clear resin legumes and seeds, shiny glass fruit baubles, pendulous beaded filaments mimicking rain or dew dripping from branches. The initial consequence is that of Tim Burton gone Goth with a bead kit. Noctilucent White globules the most dense and layered of these mini-landscapes, draws from a repertoire of atomic age and '60 floral motifs as well as the sort of underwater coral and ocean life the same might find in a souvenir water globe from Sea World. Luminous metallic enamels, luxurious textures and glistening wet polymer bathe each facet with an ersatz luster. Fashionable, sensuous, exotic, this art pleasurably walk s its stuff and charms us with its wiles.

on the contrary another possibility lurks beneath these luscious, fanciful forms. The chisels evoking heavily encrusted Victorian funereal final causes with their dark filigree, also be under the orders of as melancholic, nostalgic emblems of the "death" of nature. Saving these artworks from promiscuously substituting glitz to fill the void of that los however, are the small glass eyeballs embedded in each carve They impart the uncomfortable weight of being observed--returning our gaze to our natural bodies, where we might contemplate what we have abdicateed so readily to such exquisite artifice.

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