Mary King

“Oh Blue” is a series of unassuming, somewhat kitschy, small sculptures with a friendly but provocative presence.

They are made from paper, polymer mediums, and recycled materials and are intentionally toylike. They are painted white with blue letters and designs using a blue that the Chinese have used on their porcelain since 1300. (Incidentally they got the blue pigment from Iran, well Persia.) I feature China because of its fraught relationship to the US.

Blue has a political as well as an emotional meaning, and there’s a lot going on here: Words with their letters rearranged, rats, guns, dragons, stars, boats, planes, references to trade. It’s an attempt to add levity to a serious situation, to counter mean tweets and hostile commentary, to be provocative but not unkind, to generate conversations.