John Greco’s beautifully crafted group of copper assemblages brings a much-welcomed appreciation for well-made objects to the St. Claude Collective show. Greco has nine such objects on display, several of which are urns bearing distinctly New Orleans street names. The acid-etched surfaces do not betray the time that the artist has poured into them, revealing tacitly however an unrivaled level of craftsmanship brought to the work. His subject matter ranges in topic from the scientific and anatomical to the personal, such as in Requiem for a City – Pt 1. The copper used to create the urn was salvaged from the artist’s flooded studio, and the unmistakable patina of flooded metal beautifully decorates the object’s surface. His observation of the transient nature of all things applies equally to his anatomical work in which he depicts a stylized cross-section of an organ to remind the viewer of the decay occurring constantly within each of us. Greco’s work is simultaneously a reminder of the ephemeral nature of all things and a snapshot our desire for its persistence. The copper from which this series is so exquisitely fabricated emphasizes this temporal quality; copper may last longer than living flesh but when exposed to the elements the same processes which transmogrify its surfaces to that gorgeous copper oxide teal will eventually wash the whole away
Dave Hood.