Poyet Projection, Ellen Lanyon

Exhibition Label:
“Holding Pattern: New Works at the Spencer Museum,” Sep-2014, Susan Earle and Cassandra Mesick
This painting by the late, Chicago- and New York-based artist Ellen Lanyon portrays the armature of a fanciful antique film or light projector illuminating botanical forms. From a series collectively titled Homage à Poyet, this work, Poyet Projection, looks at the pairing of nature with odd machines and mechanical projections. The artist explained: “The most recent series, Homage à Poyet, was inspired by the numerous illustrations of inventive machinery and magic by Louis Poyet, a nineteenth-century French engraver. Through the introduction of tools and other pseudo-inventions, these paintings attempt to expand upon the theme of the ever-advancing human imprint on the natural world. These devices seem innocent enough, but there is the implication of their power over nature. They are symbolic of the persistence of invention and the threat, rather than the benefit, they tend to promise.”