There's more to Janet Alling's work than normally meets the eye – about ten times more. Alling is not daunted by the normal scale of nature. After all, she doesn't just draw plants– she communes with them. When you get her onto the subject of the way a single leaf thrusts itself into space, she may as well be talking about classical dance or a Boeing 707 in flight. Alling's found that your average coleus can be surprisingly tempermental, undergoing astonishing fits of growth and several mid-life crises in the time it takes her to complete a single painting. Therin lies the challenge, of course. "I spend days, sometimes, deciding on an angle of approach. And then, of course, the plant changes my mind for me."
We made the mistake of observing that a plant needed a lot less "emotional commitment" than your flesh-and-blood variety of model. Alling begged, most firmly, to differ. See her works this month at New York's Kornblee Gallery, 20 West 57th Street, or visit her studio at 652 Broadway. She and "they" will make you most welcome.
