Connections/Texture

My name is Nykia Omphroy. I am part of the administrative team in the department of nineteenth century, modern, and contemporary art. My topic is "Texture."

My boss, endearingly I think, calls me Miss Goody Two-Shoes. I have a reputation of being a solid rule-follower. I don't color outside the lines, I like to cross the t's, dot the i's. But

as I walk through the building, I think about things that I would love to run my hands over. Maybe it's my alter-ego showing itself, stepping outside of the lines.

Messy objects are complex objects. Texture, it's something that I look for in works of art.

There are these wonderful Body Masks, that scream out, "Touch me, touch me!" These fibrous skirts, wood, paint that looks like beading. The purpose is to commemorate someone after they've passed away. It's something physical, something that invites touch to maintain that connection.

The El Anatsui is this massive sculpture, but I like to think of it as a metallic tapestry. It has this sense of drapery, sense of movement that you would think of in terms of fabric, but in fact it's made of individual pieces of metal and plastic.

It would swallow me up, but I have this vision of myself putting it on like a cloak, and being draped in it. It has that textural association. It's so massive but it's perforated, and so there's this weight, but at the same time this ephemeral feel to it.

The artist and the team that works with him are binding these things together by hand. It's manipulated. It's not free-flowing, and each bend and fold and crimp changes the impact of the piece.

Pastel is so fleeting and fragile. When I was a little girl, being in the room while my

mom was getting dressed, whether it be for work, or for church, or some function, the last thing she would do before putting on her clothes is she would put powder on. She would always put powder on, excessively put powder on. And I remember that whenever I look at these: it's powder on paper, and that it creates

these images is quite amazing. It seems so appropriate that it's often used to depict these intimate, quiet moments. Pastels have a hushed texture and a hushed feel about them.

Van Gogh. In many of his canvases there's such a build up of paint, he creates texture. You look at his Sunflowers and it doesn't register as a painted sunflower, it is just a sunflower. In the crosshatch work, you feel the seed buds.

Cezanne is applying paint to canvas directly with a palette knife. It's the equivalent of using a trowel to apply mortar. It's pick it up, slap it on. His

nose is another dash of thick paint so that it's bulbous. There are ridges across the forehead. The paint is thick, it's fleshy. You feel skin.

This Kiefer is a massive work. It's imposing, it's heavy. I get the impression that he was in his studio throwing everything he could possibly get his hands on onto this canvas. There's oil, there's emulsion, and there's a buildup coming off of the surface of the painting. It's invading your space, like projectiles coming out at you. The scene that's being depicted is a road going through a poppy field.

I feel as if I'm wading through the space, I can feel the clumps in the palms of my hands.

I don't break the "do not touch" rule. I'm not at home in the storeroom, running my fingers over things.

But in a sense it's looking beyond the surface.