Ne Plus Ultra by Agi Gutkowska on January 22nd, 2009

at times there is beauty in death….

Something about Eric Swenson’s piece has captured my imagination. I can’t get it out of my mind ever since I first saw it a few days ago.

Decay and beauty, the mystery of death and the mastery of the carving is quite captivating. Like a creature out of a fairytale. I think I know why I love it so. My gradma told me a tale of a price that had been turned into a deer and all the springs, streams and rivers were poisoned so that if he drank out of any of them he would die, the only person that could warn him of this was his sister but she did not have a way of communicating with him as he lost the ability to understand human speech so she had to let herself be turned into a deer too to be able to warn him and save him. Now both of them turned into deers, knowing that all the streams and rivers were poisoned, had nothing to drink and after a time they knew they were bound to die but at least now they knew they were going to be always together.

Erick Swenson’s Ne Plus Ultra poses the decaying skull of a deer as a cryptic relic. Swenson captures every uncomfortable detail: white flesh peeled, exposing raw tissue and weathered bone. Cast in resin, Swenson’s sculpture doesn’t exude the expected revulsion of gore, but rather a beatific reverence. In its serene otherworldly aura Swenson’s perished beast evokes a more horrific haunting as a torn cheek reveals a row of carnivorous teeth, and flayed brow appears embossed with mysterious scrimshaw. Through attenuate craftsmanship, Swenson merges ideas of the romantic sublime with chilling surrealism, creating an object suggestive of dark fiction.