Storms, Sumos and Sweets Opens at UH-Downtown O'Kane Gallery

Artist Ellen Orseck Explores Challenge and Scale in our Lives

(Houston, Texas, September 6, 2007) Artists can be a delightfully quirky bunch, especially as they process the objects and events that become their symbols of communication. Ellen Orseck fits snugly into this group.

"Storms and sumos speak to me," Orseck says. "As an artist, you look for subjects that are meaningful on a lot of different levels."

In her 2007 exhibit Storms, Sumos and Sweets at UH-Downtown's O'Kane Gallery, running September 6 through October 11, she delves into uncontrollable power, courage in the face of great odds (the epic journey) and man-made sanctuary.  

Storms, with their elemental power, beauty, and threat, serve Orseck as a metaphor for relationships, which contain the same passion and mixed virtue. Look closely at her Wizard-of-Oz tornadoes and you will find both beauty in the fearful maelstrom and sanctuary in the nearby farmhouse that is dwarfed by the storm yet cozy with its lights aglow.   What you do not find is the aftermath of destruction.

How, you might wonder, do storms fit with the little sumo wrestlers that topple into luscious desserts and stand dwarfed by giant whipped cream confections? Once again, the smallness of man in the face of a towering power appears. The idea for the sumos came when her son gave her a toy sumo to help her exercise her hands.  

"I thought, what a strange little object," Orseck says, "a miniature version of someone huge and powerful."  

Clearly, the issue of scale figures prominently in her work. Imbedded in storms and Oz is the narrative of the epic journey, a small person facing the odds.  

Orseck uses humor in her work. She has seen so many artists "go to the dark side" (she laughs).

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