Some artists work well in a small format, but when they bring up the scale, the work suffers.
In the case of Tory Fair, the exact opposite is true.  Her small drawings and prints are forgettable, even unfortunate, her floral studded heads not much better, and a trio of sunglasses from which flowers project or are inscribed considerably worse.  But her monochromatic life size figurative sculptures occupy another realm all together.
To those familiar with contemporary art, these resin pieces—cast from the artist’s own body—may call to mind the work of Kiki Smith.  Having first seen digital reproductions of Fair’s sculpture and, therefore, expecting them to be somewhat derivative, how gratifying it was to find that, though the influence is unmistakable, these pieces speak their own powerful language.  And besides, the cross-pollination between artists is a beautiful and necessary, not to mention inevitable, thing.
Pay no mind to the glittery gold relief figure mounted on the wall next to the exhibition sign outside the first gallery, for it looks like a decoration that escaped from a Mardi Gras ball, seeming woefully out of place in the small and minimalist installation.  It is true that Fair uses glitter in some of her pieces, but she does it in a subtle and effective way. 
Inside the first of the two galleries, “In the Floor” and “In the Wall II,” from 2010, command the space quietly, yet evocatively, for their body gestures are appealingly ambiguous and open-ended.  In the former, a figure lies face down in a pool of flowers, her arms bent at the elbows with her hands pressed to the sides of her face and her legs bent at the knees, feet tenderly touching.  Both the figure and the daisy-like flowers possess a beautiful surface reminiscent of soft black honed granite.  
In the latter piece, a squatting figure’s face is partially submerged in a pool of flowers on the wall, with arms and hands in a position that echoes that of the other sculpture.  This monochromatic sculpture is a somewhat perplexing, though not altogether unappealing, coral hue.
With both of these works, the viewer is invited to try to discern whether the simultaneously vulnerable yet strong female figures are trying to peer beyond a boundary, hide their faces, create a metaphorical bridge between themselves and the natural world as symbolized by the flowers, or all of the above.
For Fair, the flowers represent ideas or the imagination as well as what seems an earnest desire to achieve greater equilibrium with the environment.  She writes that “the poses capture everyday moments,” yet they appear too benevolently bizarre and ritualistic for that explanation to be entirely satisfying.
“Walking,” from 2009, is the singular reason to visit the second gallery, and it is a large and arresting one rendered in a warm and creamy neutral hue.  An inverted female figure, arms at her sides, appears to be taking a step.  She is balanced, upside-down, on the curving stalks of flowers that seemingly grow out of her body at different points.  The image calls to mind ideas about symbiosis, equilibrium, rootedness, and more.
To return to parallels between Fair and Smith’s work, it has been said about the latter that, for her, the body serves as “a receptacle for knowledge, belief, and storytelling,” especially classical mythology and folk tales.  Her themes range from life and death to birth and resurrection in addition to the relationship between humans and animals—with an undercurrent of never-didactic social commentary—all against a backdrop of Catholic theology. 
For her part, Fair has not been making art for as long as Smith has and it seems that her ideas are not as fully developed, complex, nor as rich with interconnected associations as Smiths are…at least, not yet.  But Fair is clearly an artist to watch, just as, especially with this show, the Hermitage Museum’s contemporary exhibition program asserts itself as one to keep on our radar screens.