Best Narrative Art
Bobby's Sculpture Garden
Through a series of abstract yard sculptures, Austin-based artist Bobby Pearl re-creates the stories her grandmother told her about life in the shtetl through bronze abstract figurative work. "Pogrom!" interprets her great-grandmother's escape from the Cossacks, with a female relief hunched over a dangerous-looking, barren ground. Pearl created the narrative series, which traces her grandmother's courtship, marriage, and escape from Russia to the U.S., as a way to preserve and honor her family's history. She propels viewers through space and time with her art, creating work that also functions as living, breathing history lessons that gain nourishment from the small surrounding naturescape. Pearl's tinkling Bone Tree Sculpture Garden may honor the dead, but her bronze abstract figurative work honors the living; you can see fragments of yourself reflected in the faces of Pearl's sometimes faceless sculptures, and it's this intimacy that's inviting enough to get you out of your comfort zone and take a peek into someone else's private property.
Bobby's Sculpture Garden
1410 Travis Heights Blvd.
www.bobbyloupearl.com
