MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, CHICAGO
There is no conceptual trick to being seduced by and pulled into Amy Mayfield’s world of visual pleasure; all you’ll need are your eyes and your wagging tongue. See the world through the eyes of a kitten in heat that has its own stash of magic mushrooms. Claws and prickly dick intact, nightmarish cuteness will unabashedly ravish even the most timid viewer. Mayfield’s paintings cast a spell in a pitch that ranges somewhere between the mermaid’s fantasy siren song and a rabid libidinal caterwaul of cartoonish gore (à la the “Happy Tree Friends”). These pictures cut, gut, thrash, and finally woo the senses in a choreographed and glorious bloodbath of paint, replete with tiny flowers.
Published in Newcity (April 10, 2007)
