home
resumé
catalogs
contact

Since her last major exhibition, L. Vandegrift Davala's work has developed from an intimate size to the larger, almost mural scale of the work in this exhibition. She was aware of the significance of scale, her small works were monumental. The issue of scale and size has played an important part in the development of American art. It indicated a maturation, a confidence and acknowledged the need to communicate more directly, to suffuse the viewer with the experience. Vandegrift achieves the same powerful effect, bearing witness to the seriousness of her intentions.

Vandegrift is free of the particular, the narrative, the story, her figures dance to the rhythms of ancient myths. They inhabit the fulcrum of the present and the future, they balance between our world and the other. The artist refines the single figure-image, charging it with power to convey the purpose, to tell the tale succinctly.

These figures remain human, distinctly feminine, sharing our collective experience, talismans to be taken on a dangerous journey. They are ecstatic, celebrating life and sober, prepared for death. Vandegrift's spirits guide us through the world. Her new figures stand as guardian stones, unwavering, huge. L. Vandegrift Davala has always been an optimist, has always believed in the possibility for good. Commenting ,"I can find no larger tree to stand under", she has taken on larger spirits and beckons us to join her. Her once diminutive avatars now reveal themselves as powerful spirits capable of anything.

Kent dur Russell
Massachusetts

Mr. Russell was former director of the Arts Council Gallery, Belfast, Northern Ireland, and the Associate Director of The Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, New York. He is currently Director of the Higgins Armory Museum, Worcester, MA.

Excerpted from Tuatha Dé Danann: Lords of Light, Frank Martin Gallery, Muhlenberg College.