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Striking likeness was created during a residency in the International Artist in Residency program at ArtPace, San Antonio in 1998.  It is an installation of conceptually linked objects that reference the interface and collision of natural and human-made phenomena to suggest poetic contradictions.  The title refers to both resemblance through simulation and to its deconstruction. 

“…everything already contains its opposite and every object/event is simultaneously an end and a beginning.”
Bill Arning, Director, Contemporary Art Museum Houston
Constance Lowe: striking likeness exhibition brochure

The backdrop of the installation is a large wall painting depicting a Minnesota hotel destroyed by fire in winter, when the water from firefighters’ hoses turns to ice upon contact.  Cast metal butterflies hover over and rest on an acid-green pool of synthetic “liquid”, and mate on one of the two large iridescent organic forms. Mirrors are rendered non-reflective through coatings of talc and soot; animal hides separated from their original owners become surface coverings.  A suspended red and watchful all-weather coat hides salt within its hem as a superstitious protection against homesickness.