Susan Barron

Birds’ feathers leak poems, and books grow from brambles in Susan Barron’s delightfully gothic, quietly fascinating exhibition, which continues the Brooklyn artist’s practice of intertwining word and image.

The 42 recent works on view include several black-and-white nature photos and surreal collages of Old Master paintings. Most, however, are mixed-media drawings on handmade paper. Many of Barron’s previous projects, including the artist’s book Labyrinth of Time, which debuted at the Newberry Library in 1995, are inspired by illuminated manuscripts. While her new, untitled drawings are notable for their exquisite materials and prominent use of text, they’re too stark to evoke the centuries-old medium.

Instead, the mostly monochromatic pieces, executed in charcoal, ink, paint and chalk, suggest nature illustrations interpreted by Edward Gorey. Greasy, grim-looking birds confront the viewer or, in some drawings, keel over. Barren trees lift gnarled branches to a snow-filled sky. In the wrong hands, these dark motifs might seem as complex as an Emily the Strange sticker, but they’re distinguished by Barron’s fascination with language.

Once you notice a trail of letters emerging from a bird’s wing, or look closely at a grassy field, you realize that many of her images are composed of letters, which form quotations, the artist’s own poems, or snippets of Hebrew, German and other foreign languages. Though these tiny, cramped texts are largely (and deliberately) illegible, Barron lets us discern enough loaded words, such as “blind” and “leaving,” to encourage close and prolonged contemplation.

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