The Brooklyn Rail

ar is a playful exercise in freedom for Cyrilla Mozenter and Philip Perkis, opposite the formal presentations normally required as part of their lengthy, well-established professional careers. The book showcases working methods in mid-completion; enters thought processes as they occur; and hears preoccupations, interests, and vulnerabilities as they are contemplated.

Unlike the static finished images in an exhibition catalogue, in ar Mozenter openly shares a variety of less constrained, but equally fine quality, images capturing beyond and between her completed stitched felt pieces.

The book’s first two images, stacked opposite Perkis’s text: “dust in the sunlight,” show a “W” inlaid and stitched into a fire-engine-red piece of felt with irregularly cut edges of varying angles and shapes. One shape cut from the red felt edge appears as a stitched form below it—now joined to a mirroring cerulean shape and a golden “r” sewn in the center of a field of gray. This felt in turn has new shapes mysteriously cut from its corners.

There are twenty-nine images of Mozenter’s work in ar, half of which contain letters such as these, or words, such as “fail” and “the.” Perkis’s contributions are “words,” as the cover broadly categorizes them, rather than the photographic work for which he is renowned. His writing slips in and out of formal categories throughout: flash memoir, prose poetry, free verse, a sentence, a solitary word.

We are drawn into the midst of their creative processes. An inward gaze guides Perkis’s use of writing, as the subject matter is not well-suited to his camera. His focus is on the interior and ephemeral—a lifetime of dreams, deeply held emotions, and meaningful reflections on the mysteries and failures of youth, the brutality of nature and of the military, and a yearning to remake past attempts. Mozenter’s images of her pieces, with their curiously cut edges, function as puzzle-piece bridges between one work and another—and also reveal her thrift. My eye moves restlessly around the edges of each figure, searching for clues. I enjoy the game of matching various cut pieces from one image with their mates in other finished works.

At times, the two artists’ work interact. In one instance, the text reads, “…so anyway I was, when I was in, when I was / young, when I was in school—” while the images facing show a figure of a sad, sloth-like creature and the text “fail” in a rippling, dull chartreuse felt panel, above an image of an imperfect, three-dimensional brick of darkest loam brown, loose threads left to wave forlornly, with a grayish-blue “C” inlaid and stitched on its face.

Mozenter remarked, during a public talk at FiveMyles Gallery, on a project she collaborated on with her physicist friend, Alice Benessia. She spoke of the emotional response their interplay generated, and the profound sense of deep respect and truly heartfelt commitment shared while collaborating. The fact that the two artists, Mozenter and Perkis, have a marriage of many years, adds a special interest in their decision to collaborate, as well as an exceptionally rich layering of potential interplay.

Mozenter’s visual work is lyrical and poetic, open to myriad interpretations in addition to the straightforward tactile response her materials invite. Whether using warm, sensual felt or a less yielding paper or fabric, the tension of her minute silk stitchery consistently pulls the work into a uniquely occupied space. Mozenter has said that the warp and distortion of the felt in response to her stitches is beyond her control, making its unpredictability as exciting for her as for others. She is responsible for the work’s lawful, purposeful integrity, and appears to deliberately leave nothing to chance that is controllable.

Other works by each contributor are solo creations. Perkis recounts a dream: “Mexico. I don’t remember the place or who I was / with. The rest is vivid.” Mozenter’s multiple, single-sided handbag constructions again occupy the strange space between two and three dimensions where her work thrives. Other images lead through lush color combinations of felt—purple-gray, oatmeal, maize, and a tab of midnight blue to name those in one example.

Mozenter and Perkis work on opposite sides of the final page of ar, which has an elegant pink band running across the bottom edge. On one side we are shown a fully installed panel by Mozenter, with the floor visible for scale. It is a gently warped, massive grass green field with four stacked words immaculately sewn into it. On the reverse, we find four hyphenated words of plain text. From enigmatic title to the key-like final page, ar is an insider’s puzzle collection presented for our individual completion as third collaborator—a gift in keeping with the generous natures of these two highly admired artists.