Michael Weinstein

Wilted flowers never looked so beguiling as they do in Kate Breakey's hand-colored black-and-white photographs of expired life that reveal the opulence of decay that has attracted visual artists since the genre of memento mori was initiated by Dutch painters in the sixteenth century. Breakey's spin on the genre is to define her subjects in rigidly precise lines that render them inert, and then to resuscitate them through subtle, penetrating and enhanced color that deepens their natural hues and takes them beyond ordinary perception. Each of Breakey's photo-works is seductively textured, beckoning us to touch its subject or, in the case of her studies of blueberries, cherries and grapes, to consume them. We know in advance that our desires will be frustrated, which is just Breakey's point in setting out to "memorialize death."

Kate Breakey shows at Catherine Edelman Gallery, 300 West Superior, (312)266-2350, through February 24.

(2007-01-23)

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