McMINNVILLE — With a wink and a smile, Holden Head wades into the depths of found-objects sculpture with nods to the surrealists, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and Meret Oppenheim in his installation Stay A While Longer, continuing through March 7 at the Miller Fine Arts Center Gallery at Linfield University.
It is that implied wink that grabs the viewer’s attention and holds it, because each piece is subtly infused with a secret; a secret that Head doesn’t share: It is up to the viewer to pry that information out of the piece.
So, captivated, the viewer stands staring at Fragile, a ceramic sculpture, that looks like a nest of snakes built out of leather belts, which appear to writhe all over the wall. “What is happening here?” the viewer asks. “What am I supposed to see? What are these objects really?” And so, begins the quest to figure out, “Who is Holden Head?”…