Will Happiness Find Me?
Daphne Arthur, Mary Reid Kelley,
Jason Ledet, Juliana Romano
Marvelli Gallery is pleased to present Will Happiness Find Me?, a group exhibition featuring new work by four young artists: Daphne Arthur, Mary Reid Kelley, Jason Ledet, and Juliana Romano. The exhibitio... Read more
Will Happiness Find Me?
Daphne Arthur, Mary Reid Kelley,
Jason Ledet, Juliana Romano
Marvelli Gallery is pleased to present Will Happiness Find Me?, a group exhibition featuring new work by four young artists: Daphne Arthur, Mary Reid Kelley, Jason Ledet, and Juliana Romano. The exhibition is on display at the gallery from July 3 through August 8, 2008.
Through her non-traditional landscapes Daphne Arthur investigates ways to combine two-dimensional and three-dimensional imagery and imitate the fluidity of a brushstroke. Part assemblage, part oil on canvas, the paintings allow the viewer to step inside and experience the space in a unique way. Drawing inspiration from masters such as Poussin and Delacroix, Arthur uses rich and romantic gestures that are uninhibited and abandon representation. What emerges from this process is a narrative painting that does not rely on figuration.
In her video, Mary Reid Kelley recites a poem about a young World War I aviator who is tormented by rejection from his lover, a ballerina named Camel Toe. In this humorous performance, Kelley introduces a dramatic and idiosyncratic visual style. Disguised as the protagonist, she creates an illusion that challenges the notions of animation and works on paper. However, in the end, our hero’s notions of romantic warfare are in vain. As stated by the artist “Here the aviator witnesses the destruction of his own romantic relationship by two machines: his Sopwith Camel and a jolly toy airplane. Both the aviator and his bride find machines to replace each other at their final separation.”
The combination of contrasting images, layered techniques and assorted materials, creates a disturbing yet comic reality in Jason Ledet’s paintings. Using symbols reminiscent of childhood, he creates paintings that are apocalyptic, often evoking images from post Katrina New Orleans. Cracked streets lined with twisted houses and lawns that bleed neon; chimneys spit fire and the valleys are made of teeth that bite into the landscape. A sign says “Sorry We’re Closed” causing streets to collide.
While the world around them darkens, the young women in Juliana Romano’s paintings remain in a state of absorption and reverie. Beams of luscious yellow and crimson light invade the backgrounds. The light may meet the girl’s hair revealing her golden locks and hollow eyes. The intimate scale of the paintings establishes a deeply personal atmosphere that intensifies the subject’s captive desire and melancholy. Since they often come indirectly from the media, many of their qualities are drawn from a somewhat collective American unconscious. Each figure represents ideal beauty, but Romano’s divergent palette and choppy brushstrokes suggest conflict that is beyond repair.
