CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 6/14/2018

Aggression and menace, history and place in 'Jack Whitten: Odyssey'

Jack Whitten's Lichnos (2008) "captures the aggression and menace of the spiny, bottom-dwelling lichnos fish" that he encountered during his many decades summering in Greece, Meredith A. Brown writes in Jack Whitten: Odyssey. To form the body of the sculpture, Whitten used a large piece of wood from a burnt native carob tree, studded with horizontal rows of ceramic, glass, bone, lead and other metals. "Out of the top of the carob shoots a smooth branch of deep-black mulberry, its tapered form resembling both a powerful horn and a lick of flame. Beneath the mulberry is affixed a mending plate, a piece of flattened copper screwed into the wood to reinforce a fragile spot. Whitten associated these mending plates with African wood sculpture, as well as with his upbringing in Alabama: 'It's also a Southern thing,' he explained, 'where people are doing mending, never throw anything away, so they discover some kind of way to mend that and hold it together.' All of this rests on slabs of cinder block coated with the traditional lime solution used to whitewash Greek and Cretan buildings. The overall effect pays homage to the delicious, dangerous fish. Whitten warned, 'Be careful!'"