An artful humiliation of rats

A review by JEANE BICE

NARROWSBURG, NY — A remarkably gifted artist has an old score to settle… with rats.

Jennifer Finch’s paintings, now on display at the Delaware Arts Center, show her exquisite disdain for these repugnant rodents. Once, they ate and destroyed a papier mache´ mermaid sculpture in her New York studio.

She despises them, and the eloquence of her prejudice is evident in every stroke.

They are, of course, for sale. As unconventional as they may be, they are outstanding works of art.

Finch is one of those rare artists who never stopped rendering art onto the page or canvas since her preverbal days. Clearly, there will never again be a collection like this one. It’s a show that displays macabre humor and, ironically, elevated humanity.

On the food chain, we become loftier beings than ever, bearing witness to rats at their worst, painted at their best. Finch’s rats, though grimy and mangy, are nicely arranged and perfectly choreographed upon each canvas. (The artist studied dance with The Joffery Ballet Dance Theatre.)

They seem mounted taxidermically, while appearing alive and almost tactile.

With influences like Toulouse Lautrec, Daumier, and Pierre Bonnard, Finch’s amusing sense of irony is obvious. Here we have rats frolicking. There we have multiple pairs copulating with filthy abandon, “doing whatever they do when I’m not around,” as Finch put it.

To deepen the irony, the artist expresses her loathing with loving attention to form and detail. Her rats are not completely without charm because her talent makes such deft and savage fun of them.

Anyone who can should see these studies in rodent humiliation. They are beautiful in their ratty verisimilitude.

Finch’s paintings will be on display in the main gallery through November 1.