Origin: Unknown

In SOIL's backspace hangs a series of watercolors, including a skull, a spider, and what looks like a human heart. This last one is an especially strong piece, a watery red organ floating on a white page about the size of a sheet of office paper, lined with blue arteries and red branching veins. This essential part hangs almost in the shape of a baby, curled up, possessing a primal power, though helpless there on a blank white field. The ironic title of the exhibit is "Provenance." From the French, provenir, "to come from," "provenance" is a term related to value and worth as well as ownership. But the pieces in this show have no provenance—the artist is unnamed. "In the case of works where the creator's name is kept secret, the author's reasons may vary from fear of persecution to protection of his or her reputation," says the anonymous artist's Web site. I'm intrigued, certainly, and though the intent seems to be to show these paintings on their own merit with no distracting names or perceived personas, I can't help but think: What exactly about these pieces doesn't fit with the artist's expectations? Turns out it's a simple explanation. Not at all coy. This series is the private labor of an artist known for very different paintings. Describing the watercolors as time-intensive doodles, the artist simply wanted to show them outside a commercial-gallery context, sidestepping any preconceptions that might travel with a recognized name. And it is beautiful work, loose-edged and intense, a catalog of anxieties no less potent for its namelessness. If anything, the series of objects—Skull, Heart, Blood, Snake, Growth, Mosquito, Eye, Bird Flu, Bear, and Spider—suggest a litany of fears that might belong to anyone.