Susan Hobbs

Ranging from large-scale sculptures to multimedia works, Laurie Walker (1962-2011) sampled the human condition through a rich confluence of sources from the natural sciences and ancient mythology. Exhibited for the first time, Prometheus Rebound (2005-08), a series of large-scale works on paper, pulls together some of these themes while alluding to other representations of Prometheus by Percy Bysshe Shelley and Barnett Newman in her “retelling” of the same. The four intricately rendered panels depict vast expanses of a barren glacial landscape, and iterate the hubristic ambitions of Prometheus in his quest for fire. Walker’s drawings are also investigations of the sublime, recalling the incorruptible images of Caspar David Friedrich. On the second floor, Walker’s Pyx (1995) continues the Promethean myth in its evocation of alchemy and human origin. Her version of a pyx—the ornate lidded chalice used by Christian traditions to carry and store the Eucharist, or host—has been fitted with a tiny open flame. Over it, Walker has suspended a crucible filled with a small amount of clay, a metaphor for the mythical body built from earth that also suggests the similar alchemic properties in the host’s transubstantiation.