The paintings in The Burning Woman Project, an exhibition by Los Angeles-based artist Suzan Woodruff, were mandalas, almost entirely abstract. The paintings are not, however, formal exercises in reduction. Rather, the are meant to convey states of mind or being, with titles like Transmogrification, Secret life and The Lost Wave. Their size, vivid colors and floral compositions invite obvious comparisons to O'keeffe and Frankenthaler. Aside from comparisons of basic formal concerns, these two pioneer artists acted on impulses similar to Woodruff's, seeking to capture in their paintings a sort of archetypal feminine energy, extremely powerful and unabashedly sexual. All three of these women draw on the conventions of art history as well as the symbol and myth of ancient cultures to build their cases. But Woodruff adds another dimension to this ongoing discourse-modern politics.

     The political implications do not necessarily manifest themselves on the ample canvases, which are richly hued, serene and utterly mesmerizing. The work itself is abstract in the way it can launch the viewer into a semi meditative state, instigating meandering considerations of the most personal kind in each individual. The colorfields have optical characteristics which give off a rippling effect as they are looked at, echoing the motion of their own making. This is especially true of the sublime cobalt blue and positively radiant yellow Woodruff favors. It was the text, conversation and ritual events surrounding the exhibition which expressed the work's political content.

     The exhibition closed with a performance event on Halloween evening. Two of the paintings, Transmortification and Transcendence, represented the before and after spiritual states of the papier-mache effigy of the artist awaiting immolation in the courtyard out back. The ritual burning of the figure set in motion the discarding of restrictive physical form and the clinging past, leading to the release of pure feminine energy no longer trapped inside. The importance of liberation for the female body and spirit is the link to the political realm for Woodruff. A cause close to her heart is the repression and enslavement of the female populations in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the domestic abuse suffered by countless American women.

     The life-sized cast of the artist was displayed in the back courtyard behind the gallery space, arranged at the center of a painstaking spiral sand mandala circumscribed with rocks and water vessels. It was a waxy, flesh-colored nude, hands clasped above her head, ringed lightly in barbed wire. There was some question as to how exactly the figure would burn-would it char, crumble, fall, explode? Letting go was part of the event; it is a rare artist indeed who is comfortable setting events in motion, then taking her place in the audience. This sense of letting go is an intuitive, inclusive approach which comes from the same point of view as the meditation paintings-a powerful and essentially feminine paradigm.

     The way the figure burned, was, in fact, almost too perfect. It could not possibly have happened in a more synchronous, symbolically emphatic manner. The entire figure burned briefly, then began to extinguish slowly. The only area of the figure that continued to burn strongly was the genitals, which soon re-ignited the entire figure via the breast, neck and head. It had the ring of truth about it, and a sense of connectedness to the supernatural which was almost eerie, especially on Halloween. It was the sort of experience which defies being labeled coincidence. It was operatic, the way the effigy gracefully evaporated into smoke and sank into itself at the center of the spiral, the desired union of the poetic and the political having been achieved.