Madonna Comix Explores The Ephemeral

An arresting new show opened at Augen Gallery this week. Artist Dianne Kronberg's "The Madonna Comix" is a series of prints inspired by 11 poems with titles like "Madonna of the Cigarettes," "Madonna of the Suitcase," and "The Madonna Bomb." Featuring images of a naked pregnant dancer in dynamic poses or found images of things like pelicans and bomb vests, the prints look like frames from a weathered old graphic novel that were printed over erased backgrounds of Little Lulu cartoons, although in fact they were created in Photoshop. Kronberg originally made a name for herself with photographs of biological specimens. But then seven years ago, after moving from Portland to the San Juan Islands, she began collaborating with a poet named Elisabeth Frost. Kronberg says that collaboration in turn caught the eye of the person she’d work with on "Madonna Comix," Celia Bland.