By Michelle Haynes, CACB Board Member & Artist
The Intensity of LS Elmore’s Art
I love art that stares back out at me. Art in which the figures follow me — not in that Haunted Mansion portrait way where the eyes seem to track you across the room, but in the way the composition lingers in my mind. I keep thinking about how the artist did so much with so little.
Two of those pieces have recently been on display at CACB, both by LS Elmore (Sonya Elmore to our CACB family). Her “Owl Never Tell” mixed media and the “Weight of Worry” portrait both have intense eyes that keep me looking, and looking again.
Look, But Don’t Ask
To me, “Owl Never Tell” is simultaneously adorable and defiant. The warm autumn palette — mustard yellows, soft pinks, golden tones — and whimsical materials (real bark, twigs, a feather) are friendly and inviting. I’m reminded of childhood camping trips and the tactile grace of the forest. I want to trace the textures of the carefully assembled bark and twigs, but I remind myself to be a responsible patron, lest I cause a “Balloon Dog” calamity and send that assemblage clattering to the floor. More than that, though, the owl’s oversized, asymmetrical navy-blue eyes stare directly out, and those stick rays don’t just decorate. They radiate outward like defensive spines. That energy continues through concentric bands all the way to the canvas edge. The whole piece says “Wouldn’t it be nice to know?!” but also “That’s all you’re getting.” You can lean in to hear what it has to say, but it’s already told you in the title: it’ll never tell.
Staring but not Seeing
Now consider the eyes in “Weight of Worry” (which I’d buy if it were for sale). A figure is rendered in gold and metallic washes, with simplified features. The eyes are deceptively simple ovals, basic black and gold. Yet, they are hollow, worried eyes, sleepless with ruminations and swollen from exhaustion.
Where pupils could be, there’s ethereal gold. To my eye, the figure is diffusing. It’s rendered so close in color to the background that the person seems to be dissolving into it. But those hollowed eyes remain: staring but not seeing.
Compressed Emotional Truth
Sonya’s superpower is creating emotional intensity through simplified forms. The forms are distilled into emotional complexity that I find to be accessible but endlessly interesting to sit with. These aren’t illustrations of feelings; they’re embodiments of emotional states given physical form.
So it may come as no surprise that Sonya is a competitive slam poet. Slam poetry is about taking complex, often difficult emotional truth and making it land in a compressed, powerful format. It’s performance, it’s craft, it’s raw honesty shaped into something an audience can receive. I feel that’s what her visual art offers, too. (Check out the CACB poetry group!)
Each of these pieces has an emotional truth. As the title “Owl Never Tell” promises, it’s not going to share its secrets. Yet the figure in “Weight of Worry” might have wanted to share the burden, but it’s too late. There’s no energy left. The eyes are holding defiance, or depletion. That tension — the push-pull between invitation and boundary, between choosing silence and losing your voice — really makes these pieces work for me.
What’s Caught Your Eye?
Having the opportunity to know someone who works at this level across both visual art and performance poetry — right here in Bonham — is a treat. It’s like being contemporaries with the Beatniks or those fringe Paris artists of the 1880s before history sorted out who mattered.
Stop by the Creative Arts Center and see what pieces catch your eye and stay with you!
