NYAB Event - “Heartbeats, Hard-ons and Freak Outs” Exhibition

“Heartbeats, Hard-ons and Freak Outs” Exhibition

Marlborough Broome Street

[Image: Reza Shafahi "Untitled" (2014)]

This event has ended.

Marlborough Broome Street presents Heartbeats, Hard-ons and Freakouts, a group exhibition organized by Tony Cox and featuring the work of Raina Hamner, Joe Roberts, Joanna Skumanich, and Reza Shafahi.

Inspired by subjects of sexuality, the transformative faculties of psychedelic drugs, and our freighted personal histories, all of the artists display a fierce individuality and a dedication to making manifest their interior lives.

Raina Hamner (b. 1980, New York City). She received her BFA at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2003. She performed in The Hostess Never Lies at the Sculpture Center in collaboration with artist Agathe Snow in 2007. Hamner exhibited at Bellwether Gallery in 2009 in a group show called Song For Those In Search Of What They Came With. She has also contributed to the 2010, 2012, 2014 Brucennials. In 2015, she has been included in group exhibitions put together by Shoot The Lobster, as well as Call and Response at Gavin Brown Enterprise.

These paintings are part of a series of work done over the last year. I’ve been recalling images from my childhood that scared and fascinated me such as: the bubble gum comic Bazooka Joe’s friend who had a turtleneck pulled up over his mouth and a few strands of sad hair, Cathy from the newspaper comic strips who was always sweating and agitated and had an oddly shaped mouth that made me uncomfortable, Mr. Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street who had heavy eyelids and mop lashes and was always stowed away in a room too small for him. At this time I had also bought an iPhone and became addicted to it. Finding I was in contact with people more through social media than in real life, I began to use these characters to vent my frustrations at what felt like a lack of real in person intimacy in my life. The Bazooka Joe character I renamed as Pretty Papa who reveled in his filth and Cathy took on my own anxiety and self-disgust. They made me laugh.

Joe Roberts was born in Madison, Wisconsin. His influences originate from his obsession with comic books, skateboarding, space exploration, and his experiences with psychedelics. Using anything from crayons and paint, to trash and cut paper, his art combines humor with a raw and spontaneous aesthetic, creating a world of cartoon imagery laced with personal symbolism. Roberts has shown in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Mexico City. He currently lives and works in San Francisco.

The pieces I’m including are about a series of camping trips I have taken in the last six months throughout California where I ate large doses of psilocybin mushrooms, and explored the natural terrain around me, as well as the places and things I would be shown when I closed my eyes. The paintings are all created from the notes I took the day after and my memories of my experiences.

Reza Shafahi (b. 1940, Saveh, Iran). He started drawing in 2012 as part of a long-term art project, Daddy Sperm, by his son Mamali Shafahi. The idea was for father and son to work on identical subjects and show them side-by-side in the Daddy Sperm exhibition in Paris. Since then, Reza Shafahi has continued drawing from his own imagination and with his own inspiration.

Joanna Skumanich was born in Cleveland, Ohio and lives and works in Los Angeles. Skumanich chose pieces for this exhibition that weave together elements of a stark Midwest influence alongside the fantastical and fanciful. She incorporates fabrics gifted by her now deceased seamstress grandmother, bringing to surface the influence fabrics and tapestry have on her current work. Also a painter, her recent works exhibited here use quilting as a tangible and moveable art, as well as a personal exploration of fashion, tapestry, fantasy and tradition.