Stanza

“Aubrey Learner’s intricate watercolor, graphite and ink drawings are metaphors of desire and disgust — the disparate longings for both purity and sexual prowess, and the concurrent disgust with perversion and decay. Juxtaposing contemporary fascinations with sexuality against the various vulgarities associated with reproduction, she explores the imposition of societal mores, the coercive pressures of pornography to make oneself more desirable, and the eventual decay of the body and dissolution of sexual allure. Hoards of insects and animals associated with “the unclean” stand for an infestation of anxiety, as well as a state of impending entropy, as they simultaneously form and unravel the figure.” — Rush Philanthropic Arts Foundation