It is O.K. to smile when viewing Sara Frantz’s recent oil paintings. It is even O.K. to giggle. Frantz imbues her oil paintings with an unmistakable sense of fun, of whimsy even, due in large part to her consistent use of sheep as her subject matter. There is something inherently droll about sheep as characters, something both oddly comical and amusingly innocent. Frantz’s paintings may initially strike the viewer as fun because her painted sheep are entertaining characters. At times, she paints sheep that are very obviously sheep, often in odd positions, limbs akimbo. Other canvases display sheep that seem barely sheep at all, exploded bits of colorful fur resembling smiling baskets of thick multicolored yarn or coiled fragments of fluff floating between layers of wet color. Frantz creates sheep that invite the viewer to further the anthropomorphization that she has begun. We may well imagine them chanting, “Four legs good, two legs bad,” like George Orwell’s sheep, unable to grasp the true nature of the volatile world around them, happy to follow the crowd. Frantz’s sheep often smile out at the viewer with expressions of such dopey contentment that it seems as if they are as entertained as we are by their painted situations. For all their fun, Frantz’s sheep can also be overwhelmingly pathetic and devastating in their vulnerability. She often creates sheep surrounded by layered color; though lately she has worked to provide settings for her sheep, to locate her subjects in recognizable space and to give them homes. Whatever the setting, her subjects are always alone. This loneliness is striking because sheep are flocking animals, never straying from the mob. But, Frantz isolates her subjects, and their seclusion makes them all the more vulnerable. In fact, their compelling vulnerability played a part in initially attracting Frantz to the sheep as subject matter.

Frantz’s canvasses may share a similar subject matter, but she does not paint any of her sheep in similar fashion. In fact, she paints in a wide variety of styles, ranging from highly abstract painterly pieces filled with exuberant strokes of wild color, to subdued canvases reflective of dark urban influence, to collage-like fantasy-scapes inspired by everything from Disney cartoons to woodblock prints. Each piece seems a different approach to her medium and a further exploration of the possibilities of sheep as characters. Each is fun in its way, but each is also pathetic. One sheep sits awkwardly against a wall held in place by a metal device with missing limbs, and yet he is seemingly happy. Another’s head rests just above the water of a fantastical river, his heavy woolen coat surely pulling him down, as cheery birds and squirrels look on. One smiles complacently as its wool seems to come alive like so many parasites and consumes the body within. Others look as if they have been turned completely inside out, freshly skinned but unarguably beautiful. Frantz’s sheep are pathetic because they do not know the precarious nature of their positions. They are devastating in their naiveté, and they never seem to recognize their own dire circumstances. Like victims of nasty practical jokes who are incapable of realizing that the joke is on them, they evoke our pity as well as our laughter. The tragic nature of Frantz’s paintings does not make them any less fun, or any less humorous. On the contrary, the sheep’s seeming inability to understand the dangers around them makes them even more comical; they keep the joke going by refusing to see it as such.

Perhaps viewers will react only to the devastating aspect of Frantz’s work, the part that invites us to sympathize with these anthropomorphized sheep. Indeed, much of the power of her pieces comes from Frantz’s ability to make us feel for the sheep or feel with the sheep. But, at the same time, we are invited to laugh at them. Frantz welcomes your smiles at her work; she even welcomes giggles.