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Most Americans have specific images of human tragedy or disaster burned into their minds and psyches. The country’s elder citizens may be haunted by grainy black and white images of skeletal Holocaust victims, or of the mushroom-cloud bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Middle-aged Americans can probably replay the assassination of JFK in their heads, switching the scene on and off, or rewinding and replaying it as if they had a VCR implanted in their heads. And all of us have various scenes of the horrors of 9/11 etched into our brains. Daily we are barraged with pictures not unlike these human atrocities, and to a degree they become normal, if not benign, to us. Images such as these are the focus of Ravenna, Ohio artist Lilian Tyrrell’s work, which is currently on view at SPACES.
Tyrrell is nationally known for creating intricate, large-scale tapestries exploring social and political issues. Aside from her mastery of the textile medium, the works are stunning for their oxymoronic quality. Tyrrell spends hours and hours recreating images that have momentarily flickered across television screens, or appeared on the front pages of newspapers, only to disappear and be replaced by new photos of the next day’s tragedy. Moreover, through her expert handling of material, she not only recreates the images, she adds a physical and emotional dimension that was not originally present. The Last Hope: War and Famine features a famished Ethiopian child who died two hours after his photograph was taken. The child, who receives liquid nourishment from a tube taped across his forehead and into his nose, is dressed in a white robe. His expression is vacant, his eyes hollow. While he receives nourishment and medical attention, it is as if he is already gone; he knows that the care he’s receiving is too little, too late. His emaciated face is contrasted by a field of warmly toned tan sand, but the horror of his and his country’s situation is evoked by a huge black cloud that is the result of something burning beneath it. The diligent care Tyrrell takes with the child’s face and with rendering his place — his blameless existence — in a war-torn country is patently revolutionary. You cannot walk away from this work without a knot in your stomach.
Falling Man is equally disconcerting, depicting a sliver of a tragedy on U.S. soil. From a distance, the 74-by–38-inch tapestry looks like a warm-hued modernist painting, as approximately two dozen vertical stripes in shades of tan and brown largely comprise the piece. However, upon closer scrutiny, the figure of a man falling headfirst is revealed. Here, the knot in one’s stomach is replaced by an overwhelming sense of dread. The piece forever freezes a man’s last moment of life on September 11, 2001. This work is one of many in a series titled The Disaster Blankets. The title is cleverly paradoxical; clearly, these blankets do not provide or inspire warmth or comfort.
The Persistence of Conscience is a packed show, as the gallery walls are brimming with drawings and fiber works, which are hung very close together. At first, this seems like a curatorial shortcoming. However, after being in the space amid the work for a period of time, you realize that this installation mode was intentional. Viewed en masse, Tyrrell’s tapestries evoke the surfeit of horrifying images that flash on television screens and pepper the Internet, newspapers and magazines. Ironically, however, Tyrrell has worked with these iconic images and all that they humanly represent for hours upon hours. Once you fathom this, you are able to fully grasp the accomplishments of Lilian Tyrrell the humanitarian, the activist and — of course — the artist.