Anna Pedersen at Schroeder Romero

The 15 abstract drawings, paintings and sculptures (all works 2003) included in Anna Pedersen's first solo show, "The Skin of My Teeth," have an eerie resemblance to various things corporeal and organic.

Pedersen fills her enamel-onMylar paintings with sinewy lines rendered in Gustonesque pinks and corals that meander or swoop across the translucent support, sprouting swollen forms along their lengths. The graceful contours of paint variously suggest arteries, bones or vines. In the triptych Bumptious Ride I, II and III, spindly forms creep across the three surfaces, visually bridging the several-inch gaps between the framed panels. At sporadic points, what seem to be tumors protrude from the figures; elsewhere they extrude hairlike tendrils that run off the edges. Their pinky fleshiness evokes feelings of the uncanny--as though we're looking at microscopic studies of normally recognizable tissue that's been deformed. But all this makes her work sound queasier than it really is--more than anything, Pedersen's practiced control and pared-down esthetic make for straightforward, engaging paintings.

Hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room, attached to short segments of chain, were three sculptures cast in Aquaresin in warm red, pale pink or white. The pink and white sculptures (74 and 84 inches high, respectively) each consist of a long rod that reaches about a foot or more above the floor and develops into a clump of spherical shapes at its lower end, each orb a few inches in diameter. These round forms resemble melting, stringy marshmallows in various stages of liquefaction or balls held in slinglike devices.

Two more Aquaresin sculptures rested on the floor in separate corners of the gallery--the funnily titled Nipplebomb and Blueballs. Nipplebomb, the smallest and most figural sculpture on view, is a petite, pastel pink ball with a caricaturelike white fuse attached to its top. Propped against the wall, Blueballs consists of two blue orbs connected by a curvy forked branch attached to their tops--they look like cherries on an extra-long stem. As her detailed, skillful graphite-on-paper drawings evidence, Pedersen has as much interest in demonstrating a full control of her medium as formal command in presenting the bodily real.

--Jessica Ostrower

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