Review: Jeana Sohn at Taylor de Cordoba

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Jeana Sohn’s third solo show with Taylor de Cordoba follows a generally pleasing but increasingly well-worn model: daintily executed paintings of silent, nymph-like female figures adrift in a world of flora and fauna, rendered in a folklorish manner with mythical undertones.

Sohn presents her girls among birds, insects, flowers, peacock feathers and tree branches, often wound in long, umbilical-like cords, against flat, solid backgrounds. The palette is mild and muted; the brushwork, precise. In a noteworthy but still rather timid departure, she also includes a sculptural element: a stiff, papier-mâché figure of a girl, with a rope pinned in a long, winding line to the wall behind.

The connection forged in this and similar work between girls and animals is an interesting one, replete as it often is with tenderness and violence. Rubio Osorio, Cathy Akers, Mel Kandel and Carrie Yury all come to mind in this vein, as does the taxidermy work of Carlee Fernandez.

Sohn’s version, however, is particularly polite, emphasizing the decorative aspect of the fantasy while leaving the dark side largely unexplored, and offering little of substance to chew on.

-- Holly Myers

Taylor de Cordoba, 2660 S. La Cienega Blvd., L.A., (310) 559-9156, through June 27. Closed Sundays and Mondays.

Above: ‘Awake in the Dark.’ Credit: Jeana Sohn / Taylor de Cordoba