Dangerous Pattern
JDJ is delighted to present Dangerous Pattern, a group exhibition curated by gallery artists Mark Barrow & Sarah Parke. For the exhibition, Barrow and Parke invited a group of artists who explore different notions of femininity to hang their work in conversation with wallpapers designed by the duo. The artists included in this exhibition all wield the decorative, often through use of pattern, as both a conceptual device and visual allure. Dangerous Pattern attempts to recast the familiar trope of the femme fatale as a woman whose creative use of decoration, rather than overt sexuality, is used as a tool for seduction, revealing that her intellect is the greatest threat to the patriarchy.
With a crisp, graphic sensibility, Caitlin Keogh’s paintings and drawings belie the persistent, invasive and rampant habits of their motifs. In Rose/Mirror 15, 2020, a repeating flower pattern is drawn on partially disintegrated paper sandwiched between glass and mirror, with the paper’s cutouts providing space for literal self reflection. The tension between decoration and decomposition looms large, much like in Keogh’s paintings, where women’s bodies often are depicted in ways that infer a sense of psychedelic or psychological space, at once saccharine and sinister.
The visually rich oil paintings of Lucia Love are loaded with symbolic references to art history, mythology, politics, and the dynamics of power. Her latest painting Spancil, 2021 features a headless figure reclining against an abstracted landscape which resembles both rolling hills and breasts, a metaphor for the female personification of the earth. In place of the figure’s head is a moth — a symbol of solitude, rebirth, and feminine mystery. Love’s unusual painting style is well represented here— particularly her ability to incorporate multiple techniques, such as hyperrealism, brushy gestures, and a flat, cartoonish line into cohesive and dynamic compositions.
The still life paintings of Nikki Maloof exude a lightness of hand, yet hint at the somber and dejected aspects of the domestic and quotidian, such as the leftover fish bones from a half eaten meal in Artichoke, Lemon, and Bones, 2021. The spiky broken floral pattern of the tablecloth has a slight anthropomorphic quality, as though the leaves and stems are morphing into winged figures, or ghostly spirits. Maloof's paintings tend toward the familiar yet maintain a level of strangeness that produces an emotive quality--in this case, a sense of unfinished business, as though dinner guests had to depart unexpectedly.
Emily Mullin’s work explores the language of worship and desire. The porcelain vessel on view is framed with handles and encircled by a base in the shape of poisonous plants nestled amongst flowers. The classical form and Aegean palette of the piece nods to the greek myth of Circe, whose magical powers (strong enough to turn men into pigs) are drawn from the plants on the island she is exiled to. Flowers and foliage procured from the landscape surrounding the gallery will be placed inside the vessel accentuating the fecund nature of the work and marking the changing of the seasons from Summer into Autumn.
Ruby Sky Stiler’s reliefs make history’s symbolic patchwork of references into a tangible object. Her monochromatic sculptures and reliefs draw upon a wide range of cultural references, evoking the forms of classical antiquities and the fractured aesthetic of Cubist painting and collage. Rather than using marble, stone, or ceramic, Stiler works with foam core, acrylic resin, plaster, and discarded elements from her studio, incorporating both the monumental and the cast-off and exploring questions of authenticity, authority, value, and taste.
In many of the patterns created for the exhibition, Barrow Parke draw inspiration from idiomatic expressions related to stereotypical notions of femininity and desire. In addition to the wallpapers, the artists also include some of their drawings for the patterns. Barrow and Parke’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, Woman, runs concurrently with this exhibition at JDJ Tribeca at 373 Broadway, New York, and is on view from September 8 - October 30, 2021.