Cyrenaica 

Curator: Walter Miller Askin created this intriguing mixed-media print entitled "Cyrenaica." Editor: Oh, it's wonderfully bizarre! At first glance, it feels like peering into someone's incredibly eccentric travel scrapbook—a visual mishmash of memories and impressions. The floating collage at the top... what’s going on there? Curator: That's precisely the element that demands closer examination. Given the title, one could interpret this assortment as a cartographic representation—perhaps an imagined, abstracted map of the Cyrenaica region, using the objects and shapes to hint at specific cultural artifacts and places. It invites us to consider how the West has historically viewed and constructed the Orient through romanticized lenses. Editor: Romanticized is putting it mildly! Look at those almost theatrical figures below, draped in what I suppose are “exotic” garments and framed like a stage set with those striped curtains and odd balustrade. It has this undeniable aura of slightly awkward appropriation. It gives me the sensation of watching a play where someone has cast totally the wrong actors. Curator: I agree that there's a clear tension here between appropriation and admiration. The use of flattened perspective and vibrant, almost clashing colors intensifies the artificiality, emphasizing the artwork’s construction as a staged representation rather than an authentic depiction of North Africa. I can't help but feel the weight of colonialism's influence. Editor: Absolutely. Though, beyond the historical baggage, I kind of enjoy the clashing colors! There’s this push and pull between the representational and the totally abstract. You know, it makes you think of our own personal filters, the ways we project our weird stuff onto places and cultures we think we know. And the floating debris from someone’s brain up top reinforces this reading: The stage of otherness we imagine out of imperfect memory! Curator: I concur. Askin compels us to critically assess not only the Orientalist trope but also our subjective engagement with it. The layering of abstraction with figuration, of found objects with artistic interventions, creates a multifaceted dialogue between the objective and the perceived. Editor: Yeah. It's like he grabbed a fistful of dreams and impressions and tossed them onto a canvas—a kaleidoscope of the other, viewed with a critical eye. A real conversation starter, I think. Curator: Indeed, it's an evocative, multifaceted exploration of representation and cultural understanding, sparking reflection on historical legacies.