Carol Bove
b. 1971, New York City
Untitled (The Middle Pillar), 2007
Peacock feathers
Here, thousands of peacock feathers are layered into a dazzling, floor-bound field of color and repeated form. Long associated with the act of display, the peacock feather has appeared across many artistic traditions that shape Bove's thinking-from late nineteenth-century Symbolism to 1920s Surrealism and 1960s psychedelic culture. Its eyelike markings materialize the artist's interest in vision and perception.
They are at once symbols of looking and objects that seem to look back. Beyond these references, the feathers operate as a sort of optical special effect in this work, their iridescent surfaces transforming with the viewer's movement.
