Kate Eric at Frey Norris

Art in America, May, 2008 by Carl Little

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The twosome Kate Tedman and Eric Siemens--a.k.a. Kate Eric--have been making art together since joining forces in Barcelona in 2000 (she is from Oxford, England, he from Oregon). In that brief span the now San Francisco-based pair have produced eccentric and at times disturbing paintings, often quite large in scale, that display black humor and enigmatic narratives, but also a remarkable command of the medium, often in a manner akin to that of Dali. Critics have consistently cited the influence of Bosch (for the bizarre subject matter) and Schiele (for the way figures are treated).

For their third solo show (since 2003) at Frey Norris, the pair continued to explore the kind of fantastic imagery that has marked them as latter-day surrealists with a misanthropic edge. Sounding like the title of a Roald Dahl collection, "Stories for Bad Children" offered 16 oil-and-acrylic-on-canvas paintings, all from 2007, ranging in size from 22 by 18 to 72 by 54 inches.

In a number of pieces, the painters conjure a kind of Dantesque inferno, a cosmic dark place that is at once fearful and elegant. In one of the large pieces, Failure of the Fathers, a snake has swallowed an infant (visible through the reptile's translucent skin), rooster heads with flaring pink combs yawp sprays of spittle, and dragonflies with yellow chiffon tails buzz about. Two nude men embrace the throats of toothed diaphanous heads that erupt and howl. Obviously, a lot goes on in this ring of hell, which, for all one knows, might be a commentary on Iraq or an allegory of modern life.

No No Uncle I, II and III present distorted heads and torsos of a figure right out of a nephew/niece abuse nightmare (the pedophile uncle in the Who's rock opera Tommy comes to mind). Patches of hair sprout from a skull that seems to be coming apart--a kind of fleshly maelstrom with inflamed eyeballs, part of a twisted mouth and what appears to be brain matter.

There is little let-up. A paunchy figure threatens to smash two young boys as an octopus wraps a tentacle around his right arm; an infant is beset by unspecified terrors. The painting is intricate and florid, drawing the eye into a grotesquerie of ambitious dimensions.