Capsule Art Review

A recent review in the Houston Press by Troy Schulze.

"Sarah Sudhoff — Repository" San Antonio-based photographer Sarah Sudhoff's first solo show scores for its bravery in depicting something as emotionally loaded as cancer treatment with bold austerity and subtle humor. The artist underwent surgery for cervical cancer in 2004, survived it and began examining medical environments through photography and video. Included are nicely saturated color photos of sample cups, bloody gauze, uninhabited examining rooms and tissue samples, along with large-scale, elegantly composed self-portraits in varying examination poses. One, Exam 2, in which Sudhoff sits upright on an exam table dressed in a plaid smock and bright green stockings, her feet resting in the stirrups, references the portrait series for Matthew Barney's overtly masculine Cremaster films, but from a feminine perspective. Sudhoff extracts herself from the photo's accompanying video — in which she passes time going through drawers and medical tools (she eventually administers her own pap smear and reads The New Yorker) — to pose for a picture. In another video, she bathes in a stainless steel basin. The clinical and stark nature of the work sustains an earthbound, taut tension that suggests stifled emotion ready to explode. Sudhoff is keeping it together while ugly, bloody reality lurks in the hospital's various repositories. Through April 17. Art League Houston, 1953 Montrose, 713-523-9530. — TS