Ever since I saw that animated polar bear slip off that bit of melting iceberg to its watery doom in the movie An Inconvenient Truth icebergs and polar bears seem to be everywhere. It is therefore not so strange that Lauren Davis solo show, When Hell Freezes Over, at Gallery 16 contains both bears and bergs. What is however strange, and wonderful, is the deft way that Davies weaves these topically pertinent subjects into a quirky and complex tapestry inflected with humor, sadness, and nostalgia for small town charm.

Twillingate Bear

Much of the back-story pinning this show together comes from the small village of Twillingate in Newfoundland where a young polar bear was shot, stuffed, and placed in the tiny town's museum. Davies has produced her own life size version of the Twillingate bear which, as a juvenile, is a bit undersized. Sheathed in shimmering white fur the bear stands in the middle of the gallery on a plinth draped in night-sky blue fabric dusted with fake snow. Eerily the bear's white fur is seamless, lacking nose, mouth, and eyes.

Snowball Fort

To the front right of the bear a "snowball fort" balances. Not for protection, but rather, delicately made out of tall towers of frozen orbs. The wonderful pun of this construction aside, the gently undulating spires vibrate with the tenuous energy of a Bill Dan stone stack and the humorous bluntness of David Hammons' snowballs for sale. In front of the fort, in a high-school-play-set-like lump of snow is jabbed a flagpole whose banner whips motionless, frozen mid-ripple. The flag marks its patch of gallery broadcasting the shows title, burned into it as if by a Boy Scout.

installation view

Ranged about the bear, the snowball fort, and the flag are a number of curious objects. Hung on the wall, resting on shelves, and slouching nonchalantly on the floor, this odd assortment exhibits a DIY aesthetic somewhere between natural history diorama and elementary school craft project. An incomplete model iceberg clings to an ice-water-blue wall partially revealing the skeletal wood structure beneath its frosty surface. Sugar cubes, piled high on a floating white shelf, approximate a glittering pixilated version of an iceberg's visible mass, while the shadow it casts on the bare wall below implies an elusive dark mass of ice beneath a surface of water that isn't there. Employing everything from digitally printed images of embroidery and delicate ethereal drawings on translucent vinyl, to wonkely transformed bits of polar fleece, wood, foam, flocking, and thread, Davies has produced icebergs, hillocks, waterfalls, and landscapes that are as sad as they are lamely fun.

The Facts Embroidered

Experienced together, the works force us into a strange set of shifting scalar relations. The slightly outsized snow-fort and flag casts us diminutively and a bit nostalgically as children. The underpowered stature of the bear denudes it of the full menace an adult would engender. This impotence is magnified by its helpless lack of eyes nose or mouth. Its strange vulnerability forces us to feel protective, even responsible, for this bizarre bear-like thing. The bergs and other various modeled landscapes situate us, through their diagrammatic language, in a position that is familiar but of ambiguous size. How big is that iceberg supposed to be? Is that a mini berg, a big berg, or a giant one?

Construction and Reconstruction

In combination, the works set us adrift in an unstable terrain more treacherous than their benign appearance belies. How do these patched together recreations, models and mock-ups relate to our relationships with the places and things that they index? The answers are not clear but there is a challenge in the work lurking darkly and massively beneath the surface.


Berg

There is not much fault to find with this show, but I do wish that it hit a bit harder or landed a few more body blows. Its levity makes the show refreshingly approachable, but allows an overly light reading. That said, I am sad to have missed the snow cones at the opening. Regardless, it is impressive that without resorting to overt politics or other didactic modes When Hell Freezes Over manages to implicate us concretely in the complex terrain of relationships and cultural desires that swirl around icebergs, polar bears, and the mysterious place they occupy within our constructed landscape of collective mythology.

When Hell Freezes Over will be on view at Gallery 16 through May 31, 2008. For more information at visit the Gallery16 web site.