Review by Stephen Gambello
Amos Eno Gallery, New York
Curated by Emireth Herrera Valdés
A constellation, other than the celestial connotation, can denote a group, or cluster, of any related things. Irja Bodén creates clusters of sculptural objects that invite closer investigation. They are to be explored and assessed as both individual and interrelated offerings.
Bodén’s works can be experienced intimately by a blind person. The delicate, yet complex, texturings convert, via the person’s imagination, into a chroma — instigated tactilely rather than optically. Close your eyes, touch, and engage in the same experience.
The ceramics’ surface reminds one of the skin of a snake or a lizard– an organism known to shed its skin and produce eggs. The egg, or more particularly, the Easter Egg, now has, in contemporary culture, an alternatively colloquial meaning: indication, inference of an unexpected surprise. Boden’s objects manifest another layer of experiencing sculpture. There is literally a world of subtext flourishing within these pieces.
The oracle series’ design harkens back to the distant past of Mayan, Aztec, and Toltec architecture, as ancient skyscrapers. They have a vertical hierarchy, ascending to a statement in design — the design of reproduction. Pregnant, unformed worlds, in the form of the sphere, are hidden within some of the tactilely elaborate vessels, these spheres are still forming, still cooling, as would a molten planet. A direct opposite to the harshly textured exteriors of the ceramics, these hidden, quiet spheres become fetuses within the maternal objects. The spheres resemble eggs and are, thus, unexpected surprises within these vessels.
One Aurora series piece, Aurora 3, has a top section that is filled in and painted black; yet, the bottom section is empty, a fulfilled contextual symbolism to a seemingly empty, but, in actuality, copious content. This Aurora series maintains that the greatest offering, the greatest content, is limitless, ineffable, invisible to the ostensible gaze.
Historically, the oracle is known as a shrine by which inquiries are made of the divine by way of instinctive foresight. Bodén’s Oracles are shrines to what appears to be the mystery and power of birth. Oracle 3 resembles a castle tower, and at the base, there appears to be a sort of orifice with a pink spherical form inside. The orifice can be understood as a mouth, or a birth canal. These brittle vessels, or shrines, are an allegory to the experience of a seasoned weathered life; yet, inside, exists renewal, continuation (immortality?) in the form of the pink orb, which in this case also resembles a tongue. The orb can be seen as an articulation (as a lingual object in and of itself) of the inquest of sentience. We question our essence profoundly (out loud and in thought); in answer to the query, we produce, by way of the articulation of action: art, music. literature, architecture — and in the biological articulation of sexual reproduction, childbirth.
The Passage Series are vessels that contain removable parts that resemble spermatozoa. The pieces can be imagined as vessel-communities, as the vertical personifications of human potential (sperm) burst out of each base sculpture. These vessels invite a more involved investigation into the works, discovering their obscure symbolism. The Passage Series vessels, by virtue of their name, inspire a journey, or transfertilization to that of the egg; in the case of this exhibit, they may be related and fulfilled, as juxtaposed with the maternal Oracle vessels, especially Oracle 3.
Constellations, for me, is another word for humanity. Humanity shines bright, and continues, in regeneration, to reconsider and reassess itself in sentience. The egg, the sperm — and their sculptural equivalents — are very much alive in this series by Irja Bodén.
Irja Bodén creates a related hierarchy of living potential – that is, the levels that humanity exists in throughout the ages, through imagination, innovation, inspiration. Just as the levels of a tower ascend to a higher destination, which Boden’s ceramic sculptures resemble, so do these sculptures; they ascend to a higher understanding of where we are, where we come from, and how we get to the next level of awareness. It is through constant creation, regeneration: reproduction.
Zero Thought to Z 
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