Nesting, 2024, Giclèe Print
On first sight, I immediately recall the still-life tradition of Dutch Golden Age painters when viewing the high contrast, largely floral photographs of Kansas City artist Elise Gagliardi. While in a more contemporary medium, her works similarly luxuriate in sumptuously rendered textures: delicate white lace, rich-toned velvets, fragile botanicals and fleshy fruits pour across her tablescapes. Reflective surfaces shine with highlights, adding form and depth to the images. It is evident the artist hopes I will consider long-held themes of sensual opulence, vanitas, and memento mori.
Fallen flower petals in “Paenoia with Beaver Skull” and a half-peeled orange in “Platter Clementines” serve as reminders of life’s fleetingness. The inclusion of a five-minute video documenting Gagliardi’s daily ritual of lighting and extinguishing candles further demonstrates her fascination with the passage of time. Gagliardi says she is “interested in frugality, sustainability, and seasonal trends which influence the objects in my work… most of my flowers, seeds and grasses are from my own garden or from nearby hiking trails.”
Gagliardi’s triptych “Mother and Child in three parts” perhaps best exemplifies the inevitable process of moving from newness to disintegration. In the leftmost photograph, an array of closed flower buds, fruit halves and recently lit candles emanates color, freshness and warmth. The central image serves as an intermediary, with most of the lilies and carnations fully bloomed. (Is it possible to smell a photograph from a scent memory?) The seeds of the pomegranates and gourds burst from the insides of the mature skins almost begging to be scooped out by the chef’s knife ominously placed in the foreground. Finally, the photograph on the right indicates time’s decomposition. All flowers wilt and fade — pure whites turn to tan and vibrant pinks to brown. Fuzzy green and black mold overtakes the overripe fruits. While still burning, the candles melt down to mere fractions of their former selves.
According to the gallery’s curator, Poppy Di Candeloro, the triptych takes inspiration from the 15th-century “Madonna of Humility,” installed directly opposite in the permanent collection. For Gagliardi, lilies stand in for the Madonna, while carnations represent the Christ child. This parental connection reveals the artist’s consideration of her own motherhood and concept of regeneration. The addition of a bird’s nest and timepiece in “Nesting” suggests imminent maternal labor and caretaking. Like flora and fauna, a mother’s role wanes but then lives on through her progeny.
Still-life tradition also has deep roots in the history of photography, notably in the work of early inventor Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre. His unmoving arrangements lent easily to the long shutter speeds of early cameras. He sought to mimic the high art of still-life painting through the newly developing medium — moments of documented performance. Similar to her predecessor, and to achieve the fine detail of her images, Gagliardi’s process also employs a high aperture that necessitates a slow shutter speed.
The photographs in Opulent Decay take us through a history lesson on still lifes past to present. Elise Gagliardi’s works capture moments of theater — melodramas of transience.
“Elise Gagliardi: Opulent Decay” continues at Rockhurst University’s Greenlease Gallery, 5235 Troost Ave., through May 11. Hours are 1 to 5 p.m. Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. For more information, 816.501.4407 or www.rockhurst.edu/center-arts-letters/greenlease-gallery.
