Metro Pulse/Gamut/Cynthia Markert

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What:
Art exhibit by Cynthia Markert (with Stephen Schansler and Robert Batey)

Where:
Hanson Gallery, 5607 Kingston Pike

When:
May 16-July 1 (call 584-6097 for hours)

Opening reception: Friday, May 16, 5:30-8 p.m.

More info: website

by Heather Joyner

On the east side of Market Square, on the plywood sheets shielding passers-by from construction between Tomato Head and the Preservation Pub, someone has drawn flapper-looking ladies with pageboy haircuts. If you've wondered who's responsible for the images, chances are you're new to downtown. Or at least not old to it. Because artist Cynthia Markert has been doing this sort of street art for a while now, although, admittedly, the last time was in 1994 (it seems the police were not particularly pleased with her guerilla style). Her latest effort has the blessing of Bernadette West, one of the owners of the property undergoing renovation.

A self-described bohemian, Markert leads an enviably free-form lifestyle; there's time for reflection and what she considers "[an all-important] receptivity as well as activity." Married once, she now begins her day en-sconced among birds and the occasional stray cat, filling bird feeders at the Maplehurst apartment where she has lived for the past six years. Midday errands usually include walking to the post office and the library. "Sometimes I just pick a direction and walk along the river or through town or down the railroad tracks to my studio, then back home, emptying my mind so images can surface." Much time is also taken up writing in her journals and sketching. Late afternoons and evenings are spent in her 11th Street studio, tuned to MPR and her favorite jazz shows—particularly when she is preparing for an upcoming show, like the one opening May 16 at Hanson Gallery.

Markert's technique consists of applying acrylic paint, oil sticks, ink, pastel, pencils, and mixtures of varnish on wood panels. Of the resulting female figures, Markert writes that they represent "bits and pieces from my life...my discovery of the 'New Woman' of the 1890s, of the flapper, of androgyny. It is Romaine Brooks and Djuna Barnes and Zelda Fitzgerald: a little bit of Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton and Emily Dickinson. It is my sister, my mother's death, and my feelings about intimacy and spirituality."Her images spring from an "ever evolving fascination with the decades from 1870 through the 1930s, especially with regards to issues of gender and the idea of female identity." With numerous exhibitions and commissions throughout the country on her resume (not to mention paintings in the archives of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, in Washington, D.C., and in international collections), she continues to challenge herself and further explore the feminine subject matter she is known for.