Page 9 - Boca Exposure - August '21

Boca Exposure, Page 9
The Divine Feminine Interventions Of Vickie Pierre

On View Through Sept. 5 At Boca Museum Of Art

Like the town crier in a fractured fairy tale, Be My Herald “These works proclaim that, while we can acknowledge
of What’s to Come is the title of Vickie Pierre’s premiere solo the dark, painful parts of our past, at the same time we can
museum show at the Boca Raton Museum of Art. Grounded also express hope and light for the future,” says the Miami-
in the Arts and Crafts movement, her installations have a based artist Pierre. Her artworks cling to the romanticized,
storybook feel. A fractured fairy tale is, after all, a new twist on ornate European-based home décor of her childhood home
an old story, reimagined and restructured for a contemporary in Brooklyn. The interior design hearkened back to France
sensibility. Just as fractured fairytales can be more subversive as the mother country of Haiti, but one that never really was
than the traditional fables, the playfulness and whimsical maternal. “It’s not my history, and isn’t even really my parents’
flourishes of Pierre’s assemblages are underscored by her history. All of those decorative elements I remember growing
pull towards the beautifully grotesque. In this new exhibition, up with, the European flourishes, rococo, and Victorian, were
her works cast a feminine deity spell within the museum not even part of their lives when they were in Haiti. That’s the
gallery. In the installation she created in 2020, titled Black push and pull of it. It’s a fantasy, but it’s a beautiful lie,” says
Flowers Blossom (Hanging Tree), the artist honors the souls Pierre. “Visually, it’s the best eye candy ever.”
of people lost to racial injustice, including George Floyd, She uses vintage Avon perfume bottles shaped like idealized
Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and the many others. The women in period skirts (but removes the tops of the bottles that
exhibition was curated by Kelli Bodle, the assistant curator are shaped like women’s heads and torsos); flaxen hair from
of the museum, and is on view until Sept. 5. Pierre has also dolls; galleon ships to represent the slave trade; bracelets, cuffs
been commissioned to create two murals for the museum’s and jewelry – all interconnected by long strands of glittering
entrance courtyard, as part of the new Sculpture Garden. Goddess beads. The color backdrops are reminiscent of French
toile fabrics. Batons appear, as
sails that have lost their wind. her wall installations that blend elements of her Caribbean
“It feels like when you are heritage with contemporary culture. “There is always a
watching something decay, sense of melancholy and longing in my work, it comes from
but know that something better the otherworldly state I put myself in when I am creating,”
will take its place,” says Pierre. adds Pierre.
“I’ve been collecting these Her exhibition includes, for the first time seen altogether,
Avon perfume bottles for Pierre’s assemblages and freestanding sculpture that
some time, using them as highlight her lyrical brilliance.
my muses. They’ve been “This exhibition of Pierre’s assemblages is both a
deconstructed because I take memorial for what has passed and a desire for what is to
their heads and torsos off. come,” said Irvin Lippman, the executive director of the
It’s a play on the idea of the museum. “Exploring how people can structure their identity,
princess – who gets to be the Pierre pays homage to the French and larger European
princess?” architectural design that influenced Haitian culture while
Pierre’s creative process also subverting it. Her vignettes deal with current issues,
is informed and inspired by revealing deeper truths and fractured identities, but are
memory, fantasy, surrealism, cloaked in charming tableaus.”
popular culture and the About the Artist. Vickie Pierre is a multimedia artist, born
decorative and ornamental and bred in Brooklyn. She graduated from the School of Visual
arts. She is best known for Arts in New York in 1997. She currently lives in Miami.
Pierre has participated in exhibitions worldwide,
including: National Museum of Women in the Arts (D.C.);
Miami Art Museum (PAMM); Fredric Snitzer Gallery
(Miami); White Box (N.Y.); Musee International des Arts
Modestes (France); Museo de Arte Contemporaneo (Puerto
Rico); Polk Museum of Art (Lakeland); The King Juan
Carlos of Spain I Center (N.Y.); Los Angeles Art Association;
Museum of Art and Design (Miami Dade); Little Haiti
Cultural Center (Miami); The Deering Estate (Miami); and
Locust Projects (Miami), among others. Her artworks can
be found in private collections and public institutions.
The inspiration for Pierre’s work has manifested itself
in years of collecting diverse materials that often serve as
muses in her daily practice and as actual, physical elements
within her assemblages and installations. Her continued
focus is on the universal themes of identity with references
to design and nature, alongside the interconnectivity
between her Haitian heritage (including the larger
Caribbean community) and global cultural mythologies,
while considering feminine and historic tropes that are
relative to contemporary cultural politics.

Council Corner from page 8

more intensive address-confirmation requirements at
Boca High, will address much of the overcrowding
issues that were so concerning a few years ago.
South Beach Pavilion Reopens. The pavilion at
South Beach Park reopened last month after several
months of repair work. In February, a driver pulling
into a parking space at the pavilion had his foot get
caught between the brake and the gas, which caused
him to crash into the pavilion.
Inspections revealed that more work was necessary,
which took additional time, but we’re glad to have our
beautiful pavilion back and good as new!
Boca Raton to Host Hospitality Job Fair. Here’s
a shout-out to the City of Boca Raton’s Economic
Development team. The very same day that Jill
Goodman, a restaurant owner in town, reached out
to me to ask if the city could help connect hospitality
business owners with people seeking work (an
industry-wide issue), they and CareerSource Palm
Beach County organized a Hospitality Job Fair for
Aug. 26 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Spanish River Library.
If you are interested in job openings, please email
EconomicDevelopment@myboca.us to register.