“Water, Water” Please!

“Wrapped Stick N42 degrees, 39 minutes; W70 degrees, 40 minutes” (2012) site-specific installation, driftwood and silver plumber’s tape, by Sarah Hollis Perry and Rachel Perry Welty

The sea is the messenger but not the message in the first collaborative museum show, “Water, Water” by mother Sarah Hollis Perry and daughter Rachel Perry Welty, now at the Cape Ann Museum in Gloucester, MA through September 30, 2012.  The mixed-media pieces in this one room show range from the central, wall-sized seven minute video “Drawing a Line with the Tide”, which tracks a single line of about eighty people in low beach chairs along a crescent of beach as they frequently adjust to the rising tide, to “Wrapped Stick”, an oversized pigment inkjet print of a fourteen foot log placed by nature on the tidal rocks, then wrapped in silver plumber’s tape by the artists, gloriously gleaming as it contrasts with and reflects the surrounding ocean and sky.

Still image from “Collaboration” (2012) digital video with sound (6:25 minutes) by Sarah Hollis Perry and Rachel Perry Welty

In a visually beautiful and well-executed six minute video entitled “Collaboration”, we see the mother’s left hand and the daughter’s right hand in a series of five short scenarios wherein they utilize some form of water to complete a task: constructing drip sand castles, dividing a block of ice with picks, filling a pitcher from two small containers, untying a water-filled plastic bag (by far the greatest challenge) and washing hands under a garden spigot.  Simple and elegant, these pieces employ one of the most fundamental elements of life, water, to draw attention to one of our most fundamental relationships, that of parent and child.  One literally never loses sight of that laden relationship, and I found myself watching for signs of conflict in the unspoken cooperation and challenge of each interaction.

Still from “Drawing a Line with the Tide” (2011-2012) digital video with sound (7:19 minutes) by Susan Hollis Perry and Rachel Perry Welty

There is no conflict in “Collaboration” or anywhere else in the show.  This seems like a deliberate choice on the part of the artists and it succeeds in creating a sense of serene optimism.  Rather than struggling against the tide, the people in “Drawing a Line with the Tide” make each adjustment to the rising water with an agreeable accommodation.  The gleaming log in “Wrapped Stick” rests in situ, adorned by the artists but moveable only by the tides.  Every piece in this exhibit demonstrates a beauty inextricably linked to nature.  That beauty seems to be elevated by the respectful acceptance of the effects of natural forces over time on driftwood, on ourselves, and sometimes, on our relationships.

“Double Self-Portrait” (2012) pigmented inkjet print (30x20 inches) by Susan Hollis Perry and Rachel Perry Welty

In a piece probably originally meant to serve as a picture of the artists, “Double Self-Portrait” appears on the wall at the entrance and it embodies the undercurrent of the entire show. As the artists face one another, each suspends her hand at the other’s cheek, hiding expressions, but revealing the complexity of relations between mother and daughter.  The hands are at once shielding and protecting, arresting and stifling.  But there is no struggle.  Only a heightened awareness that, in accepting the love and conflict inherent in our relationships-with each other and nature alike-there can be abundant poignancy and breathtaking beauty.

All artwork courtesy of the artists and Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York