Luisa Caldwell's 'A Cat in God's Garden' at Smack Mellon Explores Floral Traditions and Feline Disruption

Luisa Caldwell presented her exhibition 'A Cat in God's Garden' at Smack Mellon from September 29 to November 4, 2018. The installation featured 210 drawings arranged in grid panels, six hand-detailed vases, and stacks of art books with embedded ceramic volumes. Drawings referenced historical botanical illustrations, European floral painting traditions, and 19th-century amateur styles, while incorporating geometric patterns and vibrant marker colors. Caldwell included fresh flowers from her own garden and offered visitors free posters. The vases, modified through sandblasting and underglaze techniques, depicted floral motifs with hidden cat imagery, evoking ancient funerary vessels and references to the Egyptian goddess Bastet. Ceramic books with titles like 'Nanny and her Flowers' and 'For the Love of Cats' inserted personal narratives into stacks of mainstream art monographs. The work juxtaposed surface cheerfulness with underlying tensions, using cats as symbols of chaos and infidelity that disrupt the garden idyll. Located at 92 Plymouth Street in Brooklyn, the exhibition created cumulative meanings through floral symbolism, art historical references, and subtle disruptions.