Exerpt UTA catalog

Excerpt from catalog essay by Jody Lee: The Figure 3 + 3 x 3, The Gallery at UTA, January 22 - March, 2, 2002

The atmospheric charge around Ms. Arenz' work continues in Frank Born's paintings. In his pieces, a single figure appears like a trace mineral within the ground. In "Figure Flying or Floating" and "Single Figure," the ground is dense, pure color. Only in "Man Looking Out" does it resolve into a kind of space. But in all three paintings, the solidity of the ground exerts a greater atmospheric pressure than the figure can answer it with. This lends Born's figures their sense of all-over weakening, reminiscent of an immune deficiency. In "Single Figure," the brushwork of the ground becomes emphatic, shoring up a figure that seems oddly weightless on its feet, like someone who has the light-headed realization they're in fact too weak to stand.

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