← “Les Fleurs du Mal” Group Exhibition at Pierogi

Patrick Jacobs

“Les Fleurs du Mal,” sculpture series, 2018, mud, sticks, wood, wire, epoxy, dimensions vary.

Entitled “Les Fleurs du Mal,” after Charles Baudelaire’s eponymous collection of poems, this series of sculptures references plant, animal and human forms. Hybrid creatures, primitive, crude, and often sexually charged, they continue the artist’s ongoing exploration of landscape and desire. Made from mud, sticks, glue, and epoxy, their very materiality ensures a loose construction while eschewing precision and overthinking. Strange forms rise from the dark, fecund earth like a garden of the subconscious mind, blooming in ecstatic, obscene colors, wet and shiny in the glinting light of our gaze.