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By Laurie S. Hurwitz
American Artist, September 1991
"I've always collected sculptures and I've always put sculptures in my paintings, just as Cezanne put them in his still lifes," says the artist. "Making sculpture attracted me because of its substantiality. Our society is fragmented, empty, and falling apart, so I wanted to make solid objects, things that people could literally hold on to, things that wouldn't fly away or disintegrate." Her first sculpture, made in 1981, depicts a seated cherub clasping a shield over his heart and nearly fits into the palm of your hand, not unlike a votive object.
Then came a series of progressively larger images embodying female strength, ranging from a black medicine woman and a sun goddess to mythological deities such as Athena and Diana. These works culminated in Civitas, a group of four, thirteen foot high bronze goddesses that preside over a section of the parkway in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Together, the various figures Flack has depicted during the past ten years comprise "a virtual temple dedicated to the archetypal female muse in her myriad guises," as art historian Susan P. Casteras writes in the catalog to Flack's recent solo show, "A Pantheon of female Deities," at Manhattan's Louis K. Meisel Gallery.
Blending the philosophies and legends of various cultures, including Greek, Indian, Chinese, African, American, and prehistoric, many of the figures, such as the medicine woman, are healers; others are images of women beginning to assert their own power. Egyptian Rocket Goddess, which the artist says is about "breaking free," has a determined facial expression and a frontal physical stance that, with arms extended and head thrust out, literally pushes forward. Combining ancient and modern imagery, the taut Egyptian Rocket Goddess has snakes wrapped around her arms, a traditional sign of female power and fertility dating back to a sculpted Minoan snake goddess from 1600 B.C.; her drapery and head-dress are adorned with the sleek, contemporary image of a rocket. Standing on a platform for launching spaceships, the figure appears to have worn, age-old footprints beneath her.
Several of the works reinvent ancient mythology. Colossal Head of Medusa, for example, challenges the traditionally negative reading of the classical myth. As the story is usually told, Medusa was a hideous creature with hair of snakes; a mere glimpse of her face could turn anyone to stone. Perseus beheads this monster to save his kidnapped mother. Through extensive research, the artist discovered that Medusa, the most beautiful of three Gorgon sisters, had been raped in Athena's temple. Offended that her temple had been desecrated, Athena punished Medusa by changing her hair to snakes; Medusa, ashamed, hid in the under world.
In Flack's version, the open-mouthed Medusa becomes "a metaphor for the rape of the earth, in its efforts to speak in its own defense." Says the artist, "The viewer must become her voice and protector." In Colossal Head of Medusa, she is presented as young and vulnerable, "startled out of her sleep, captured in that moment immediately before yet somehow just after she is beheaded." To make the sculpture, Flack cast seashells and coral, which represent the healing properties attributed to Medusa's blood in the original myth, as well as ropes and bullets, all of which were incorporated into her hair. There, she also depicted a tiny version of Pegasus, the winged horse that miraculously sprang from her head. The objects symbolize her vitality and strength, even at the moment of death. In other versions of the figure, Flack restores Medusa to her beauty and power; one is an amulet with Medusa's image, which Athena wore not as proof of her vengeance but for protection.
Although seemingly a departure from her Photo-Realistic paintings of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, Flack's sculptures clearly share similar intentions with her earlier work in other mediums. Women and goddesses have always been incorporated into Flack's work. Isis, which adorns the book jacket for Flack's Art.