lamppoon

Philadelphia, May 2017

In this exhibition, dark humor and domestic objects come together to reveal the artists' discomfort with expected roles or relationships. They find hilarity in confusion and consumer goods. A ponytail is potted like a plant. A purse drains like a sink. A play on words turns into sardonic commentary of gender systems, and the grotesque.

Lamppoon features three artists who use humor to accentuate or alleviate darkness found in gender and relationships. Colleen Billing and Shelley Picot’s domestic sculptures take on cartoon-like qualities as they veer from their intended functions and reform as awkward substitutes. Eleanor Farley unpacks cartoon imagery in works that reveal entangled roles and memories. All three women employ comedy as a way to cope with tragedy. They turn grotesque into goofy. They revel in the confusion, anxiety, and discomfort found when confounding expectations. What looms beneath the surface of these works is made acceptable through laughter.

assorted tropicals

NoBa Artspace, Aug 2017

Assorted Tropicals is an exhibition of paintings and sculptural objects that consider the overlap between consumerist aspirations and nostalgia. Within their separate individual studio practices, Alex Ebstein, Jess Machacek, Eric Simmons, and Elliot Walters use a casual representational approach to unpack the transaction between memory, place, and object that happens after a vacation ends. They consider the souvenir purchased as a tiny portal of reminiscence and flashback to aquamarine leisure and fun.

Featured in the exhibition are works from Ebstein’s yoga mat paintings, Machacek’s vinyl panels, Simmons’ landscapes, and Walters’ ceramic swimming pool vases.