"Eleanor Spiess-Ferris," by Garrett Holg, Art News, October 1991

In these new paintings Eleanor Spiess-Ferris continues to draw freely on folk and religious images from her New Mexican childhood. Blending the expressive emotionalism of the retablo painter with grotesque visionary style of Bosch and Brueghel, her strange and disturbing works have always suggested a dark, desperate acceptance of the inevitable. Recently the clown has entered these works as a symbol of this fatalism. Although he wears a dunce cap and cone-shaped nose, he is no fool, but an incisive social critic whose cynicism is capable of baring a sinister, razor-sharp edge. Mimicking our vanities and conceits, he assumes many different roles. In one work he takes his place among a group of roguish conspirators concealed behind a series of stage doors. In another he appears as a miniature groom hiding beneath the shirts of his gigantic bride. A sense of theater pervades these paintings, which comments on issues ranging from censorship and art to the environment. Many of the scenes are set in claustrophobic rooms with black-and-white checkered stages, on which odd bits of business are acted out by an even odder cast of characters. Here it is not unusual that a woman with a nest of exotic birds for a head should dance a ballet or that a young woman looking into a mirror should see a skull staring back. Most of the clowns in these works seem unwilling or unable to take part in the events that unfold around them, even when one has accidentally snagged a droning man while fishing. Tuning to the viewer he registers no emotions, as if he could just as easily let the man drown as reel him in. A matter of fate, the rescue has consequences neither can escape. And while we like to think the clown is able to weather all disasters, Spiess-Ferris admits that hers are vulnerable. In an artist's statement she says, "They only 'think' they can survive."